On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Doug Fields <[email protected]> wrote: > ** > "I saw this, and could not tell if it was more funny or more sad. > "Perspicacious" is not that obscure a word in the first place (I would > estimate it around the 75th percentile level on the SAT)." > > Personally, I'd say you're giving too much credit to the masses. A quick, > non-scientific survey of about 15-16 people in my office resulted in my > being the only person in the sample who knew the definition...and I have to > admit to looking it up to confirm that my definition was indeed correct. To > make matters worse, we're a hybrid education/technology company, so > the demographic in my survey sample skews more-educated and higher > vocabulary-skilled than the general population. >
Perhaps - my guess was that 25% of the population would know what the word means, which would be about 4 of the people in your office, not 1. That could be random error in the sample, or perhaps it is more of a 90th percentile word than a 75th percentile word. I stand by my main point though. There are lots of words I don't know the meaning to, and I am sure many of these someone like Chrstiane Amanpour does know the meanings to a lot of them, and may use them on her show. I think if you are going to watch a current affairs news program, you have to expect to run into a few words you don't understand, and you don't need (and I think most would not want) these to be defined on the screen. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
