The tome in question is Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species - a publishing phenomenon that not only continues to evoke the awe of scientists but also to provoke public misunderstanding and mistrust 140 years after its first appearance.
This not only provokes escalating misunderstandings but gives the lead actor a chance to play dual roles, one that Tom Hollander seizes with inventive avidity.
But when it comes to the words we use to describe our work to others, we are often inconsistent and provoke miscommunication and misunderstanding.
Although Curiosity did find organic matter, the media's frenzied anticipation that preceded the press conference and drove it into a ballroom to accommodate all the TV cameras turned out to have been provoked by a misunderstanding.
One-way thinking is not only narrow and limited but can provoke fights and misunderstandings among the people from different cultural backgrounds.
The result is that French and English have a greater overlap of shared vocabulary than French and Italian (or, for that matter, English and Italian).But the two languages also have a number of faux amis, friends so false that they will provoke many an embarrassing misunderstanding.
The normal divisions of American politics and society were bound to make themselves felt again, and whatever the United States did in response to the attacks would provoke the tensions and misunderstandings that inevitably accompany the actions of a superpower in distress, no matter how deft its diplomacy or thorough its consultations.
But even within the honeyed glow of unity that has come to follow tragedies here, these disparities can be difficult to ignore, occasionally provoking moments of friction and misunderstanding.
In 1781, a minor misunderstanding about etiquette provoked a major tantrum from Hamilton, who resigned his position in Washington's staff, declaring that "for three years past I have felt no friendship for him and have professed none".
Mixed levels of understanding and misunderstanding are very likely to provoke a particularly high level of debate and disagreement.
Here, we have to get past a common misunderstanding: the view that the Chinese have us over a barrel, because we don't dare provoke China into dumping its dollar assets.
