Both Uses of
illiterate
in
Atlas Shrugged
- She was calm, she thought, it was only time that had suddenly lost its continuity and had broken her perception into separate snatches: she knew the moment when she saw the number-then the moment when she looked at a list on a board in the moldy half-light of a doorway and saw the words "John Galt, 5th, rear" scrawled in pencil by some illiterate hand-then the moment when she stopped at the foot of a stairway, glanced up at the vanishing angles of the railing and suddenly leaned against the wall, trembling with terror, preferring not to know-then the moment when she felt the movement of her foot coming to rest on the first of the steps-then a single, unbroken progression of lightness, of ris†
Chpt 3.8
- The soldiers were finding nothing but garments and kitchen utensils; there were no letters, no books, not even a newspaper, as if the room were the habitation of an illiterate.†
Chpt 3.8 *
Definition:
unable to read or write (not literate)
or:
uninformed in a particular field or general subject area
or:
uninformed in a particular field or general subject area
Note that "functional illiteracy" means that although one may be able to read or write a little, their ability is inadequate for normal requirements in their society.