So, I happened across this list of 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know.

I’ll be honest. It made me feel stupid.

I knew just more than half of the words meanings on first glance. From taking the words apart and working out the potential meanings, I probably could make an educated guess on maybe 15 of the remaining words. But that still leaves about 30 of the 100 words I “should know” as a complete, “huh, wha?” for me.

I didn’t take the SAT. I took the ACT once and, happy enough with my score, went about junior and senior year stressing about other things. So, unlike many peers, I never worried about memorizing seemingly random word lists and meanings. I’m presuming that is where my peers would learn such words as bowdlerize, orthography and quotidian. Because I can’t imagine short of doing a lot of crossword puzzles or memorizing the dictionary, those are words that have ever come up in conversation.

You know, maybe I am better off not knowing these words.

My sister Brandiann is constantly on my case about my use of what she calls “Republican” words. Most of the time these words are not uncommon; they just have multiple syllables, and that frustrates her. I don’t try to impress people with my vocabulary. In fact, as a newspaper reporter, I don’t get that chance very often. Though, I admit, I’d love to see my editor’s face if I tried to squeeze in the word “incontrovertible” instead of undeniable.

But, it makes me wonder. If my college-educated vocabulary, which is hardly lacking in my opinion, is barely a passing grade on this list of 100, then where the heck does the average high school graduate fall.

And who the heck compiled this list? I can think of a few more practical terms that should be there, such as “APR” and “Interest Rate.”

But eh, that’s just me. And hasn’t this post proved that I apparently don’t know as much as I should.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 12:22 am and is filed under College, Fun, Ideas, Lists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.