Tuesday, June 05, 2007

How Many Do YOU Know?

BOSTON, MA — The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."

The following is the entire list of 100 words:

ETA: There are 11 of these words that I (Elizabeth) do not know well enough to use myself, and of those, only 3 that I don't understand in the context of a sentence. That gives me an 89% mastery of these words. How did you do?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I went to public school in Texas and work in Technology. When I look at the columns of words, my mind just basically glazes over and I think they must be in a different language.

Jaime said...

There might be 11 that I DO know... Geez! :-)

Are you sure those are English words?... Are you just pulling our legs? :-)

The Peacock Pearl said...

no fair... you taught latin and were a wiz at greek! you are no average american as far as language goes! :p

Anonymous said...

I expected a new picture. Then I saw the word list and thought they must be baby talk, but... I guess not. I need a picture.
Daddo

Anonymous said...

so i read the list and counted. and there are 20 words that i don't think i've ever seen, read or heard before. of the other 80, i'm not sure i could explain some of them, but in the context of a sentence/conversation i think i would understand them well enough to not zone out (well, some would be boring to me so i might zone out for that reason....). i'm impressed with your smarts, for sure, though i knew that you had (have) an unfair advantage with your love of latin!

Anonymous said...

As I looked at that vocabulary list you posted I thought that how gauche of some seemingly bellicose person, who obviously thinks they have been gifted with - well - shall we say an extra epecail fatuous chromosome. I have some questions about them and their sect. Are they going to inculcate us with their spcial knowledge? Are they trying to usurp my totalitarian authority over my own vocabulary? Are we going to have to kowtow to their terms? Will we have to pay reparations if we teach our children our own nonsectarian way? To get peace for these answers I climbed atop my reproduction Babylonian Ziggurat and waited for an epiphany. I found it in the words of Solomon, so to plagiarize him "Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. I thought of going incognito, but I shall reveal that I wrote this.

Anonymous said...

Note: about previous comment. The words epecail and spcial should both say special. My only excuse is that I looked at the posting time and I should not be up this early :-)

Jaime said...

haha... I didn't understand half of that comment, but it made me laugh. :-)