Are We Living in a Kakistocracy?

Christie over at Life at the condo was watching the National Spelling Bee when the word Kakistocracy came up. I think she may be onto something here....

100 Words Every High School Grad Should Know

This list is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. I have a Master's Degree in English and even I don't know some of these words. Methinks the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries are suffering from a case of inflated ego. A few of the words:

abjure
abrogate
abstemious
bowdlerize
expurgate
jejune
lugubrious
moiety
obsequious
orthography
pecuniary
unctuous

Honestly, I've gone through 35 years of living and never even heard these words used in conversation. More importantly, they are rarely used in writing as well. Why on earth would I bother wasting several Megabytes of brain capacity learning to use archaic words that are worthless in day-to-day usage? To display "linguistic superiority" over others? Only a silly dictionary editor could come up with this crap.

As a former Technical Writer, I think it's more important to stress how to use language simply. Tossing vocabulary at people is merely confusing for most of the population and leads to problems and lack of communication, especially when writing instructions or directions for people who speak English as a second language. Proposing words like this is nothing short of ignorant.

[100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know]