Why do we still have this festering feud between the two main antagonists here? Just because someone exaggarates about US aircrew not understanding where a waypoint they've been cleared to and then claiming that it happens every time doesn't need a full blown retort which only gives credence to the stupid generalising remark in the first place.
US crews, exactly as us UK crews, if we get a direct to a waypoint and we don't quite hear it correctly in that it doesn't appear to be in our flight planned route, then we just ask again and if we are still unclear we ask them to spell it out phonetically. No big deal. If the waypoint isn't in our planned route then we ask the controller to verify our routing after the waypoint and mention to him or her that it isn't in our original flight plan. What's the big deal?
Neither system is perfect and neither is dangerous, per se. It is just a fact that at times humans can make errors and iit is down to our and the controllers professionalism that we catch them in time and learn from them. No doubt in this case at BOS we will learn exactly what went wrong. Get used to it.