While semi-literate people are able to read and write also, but they are limited to only the opinions of others. Originality is missing in these people. Functionally literate people, however, are those who can read but have little understanding of what they have read or how to express concepts to others. Illiterate people, we know, are unable to read or write. They can only do as they are told, and have no way of evaluating the ideas of others beyond the spoken word.
Scripture gives the solution for the dearth of knowledge so many people have.
Children are indoctrinated, rather than taught, to hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. How ineffectual such training is. To just repeat a word without an undergirding of morality makes parrots of men and their children. Such an one has as his experience an abundance of knowledge coupled with understanding which causes a clean, stable, humble life before God and HIS crowing creation - man.