The Bart, The

So I'm reading up on APA style for proofreading, when I come across this peculiar sentence:

"Note a word used as a word, or a foreign term, with italics, for example, hutte means hut in German."

I pause.

That can't be right - what good does to do to tell someone that hutte means hut in German?

Oh.

Hut as in small house. Not der Hut as in "hat."

What a horrible example.

And "note a word used as a word"? What does that mean?