meanings

"Even at a surprisingly young age, kids have sophisticated knowledge of the grammar of sentences and can use that to learn the meanings of new words," says Athulya Aravind, an associate professor of linguistics at MIT.

"We're in a sense building on that idea, and saying that even in the simplest cases, aspects of language that children already know, in this case an understanding of focus, help them grasp the meanings of unknown words."

Because words do not attach to meanings, the stories don’t need to be consistent.

But the highlight of the webinars is the insight into what Singapore-born Christopher preaches to be the hidden meanings of words used in everyday language.

Normal words such as person, nice and even smart meter all have covert, sinister meanings, the cult leader tells his followers.