My mom sent me this list of 100 words every American high school graduate “should” know, in order to display superior command of the English language. I consider myself fairly well read but I didn’t fare so well. I’d say, about 25 of the words were familiar enough to me that I didn’t need to look them up in order to define them and use them in an everyday sentence. Maybe 10 of the words I had absolutely no idea about.
The rest fell into that grey area where you know you’ve heard them before, and can even pronounce them correctly, but can’t really put your finger on what they mean. I guessed at each one before I looked them up, and I was sort of right — in the general area — for most of them, but for at least a few I was way, way off.
I think I need a word of the day calendar!
TurtleHead 
evanescent.
that band sucks!
Hee hee…that is totally what I thought when I saw that word, too!
I can’t figure out how they came up with this list. It seemed totally arbitrary to me, and I don’t think you really need to know all of these words. I read about 10, closed the browser window and deleted the email. Meh.
What a ridiculous list. I’ll drop any pretense of humility and just state that my vocabulary is probably well above the average high-school graduate. And not only do I also have only a vague understanding of what many of those words mean (abjure? jejune? mitosis? churlish?), but I’d go so far as to say that the idea that every high school graduate should know those words is sorely misplaced. I’d peg a number of those words as useless in both everyday conversation, even among literate people, and business communication. For elitists only.
I had a friend who had a professor who had given someone an A+ on an essay because they used the word “jejune” properly.
I think you’re getting thrown by the fact that the first ten or so words are rather obscure. I’d bet that if you saw half to three quarters of those words used in a sentence you’d know what they meant.
There are maybe 20 words that I could use effortlessly and maybe another 10-15 that I would understand the meaning if they was a sentence to give them context. Clearly, I went to an inferior high school.
Also? Hi! Nice to meet you!