This post made me think of it as it’s a good example of this.
Every now and then I encounter writing like this (often it’s something someone is showing me) and I just read it, and then I re-read it and then I re-re-read it and my mind just stays completely blank and I have no clue of what it’s saying. This seems to be happening to me quite regularly and honestly I feel quite stupid. I’m wondering if this is some ADHD / autism thing, granted that english is not my first language. However, like I said, it’s not that I don’t understand the words - just not the meaning of them together.
Seems it was culture in your example. Culture may give new meanings to words. You don’t know one, you can look it up. But if you don’t know five words at once, you are lost.
Yes! And if one doesn’t know different definitions are used, one won’t know to look them up.
There are also “terms of art”, which are normal words that take on new meaning within a a field. Sometimes these are multiple words that otherwise could have meaning. These appear in legal writing, but also in programming and other areas.