NOT Obvious
With a nod to the original topic -- "technology" is neither taught nor teachable. It is simply a word to describe relatively modern methods of doing things using tools. I can teach you about tools, and methods to use tools; I cannot teach you "technology" (beyond the fact of its place in metalanguage).
" it is obvious that the intended meaning was understood regardless of spelling or grammar errors."
Not so fast! Even with a bi-directional handshake you *still* cannot know whether your message was understood because the same translation that is applied to the message, is applied to the feedback and it will only *seem* that it was understood. It is true that with more words (greater redundancy), small errors do not usually contaminate the message. However, we might use the King James version of the Bible as an example of words that were very carefully written and yet understood in countless different ways. Imagine the confusion when we are sloppy in our speech and writing!
Example: in one class in which I was student (In the US Navy), the question read "How many characters are on a print drum?" (yes, a few years ago!). I raised my hand and asked, "Do you mean around the circumference (ie, distinct character shapes), along the length of it (number of columns), or the product of the two? The teacher was dumbfounded and said, "Never in all the classes I have been teaching has anyone ever asked that question! Does anyone here not understand what it means?" Everyone in the class assured the teacher they understood the question. I raised my hand: "But how do you KNOW that anyone's understanding is the same, or is correct? He understands '63' and she understands '120' and the real answer might be 7560". By the way, I never did find out the intended answer. I have one of those drums; intending someday to roll "alphabet cookies" with it.
Our student in Glasgow believes that everything in the universe can be described by numbers. I would like to see someone describe God or the Gulfoss waterfall in Iceland using only numbers. It can be done symbolically of course; using a "shared secret" such as "8" means Gulfoss waterfall in Iceland, but that works only if you have previously agreed upon the meaning and language of the symbols being used.
Numbers, by themselves, have no meaning.
Numbers are ordinal or cardinal, concepts that have significance in things to be numbered or measured -- but the number speaks to only one property: the position or value of a thing.
