These people are receiving Masters degrees.

During my first full day of classes, I experienced not one, but two instances of utter disbelief regarding my classmates' lack of general, common knowledge. The first was when a woman made an argument pertaining to "No Child Left Behind" while we mock argued a court case from 1975. I remarked that it was anachronistic to make an argument based on "No Child Left Behind" and the woman just looked at me like I was a giant tomato, or marshmallow.

"It's what?" she asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
"Anachronistic --" I paused. No look of recognition. "It's not chronological," I said. No dice. Still she didn't understand. I thought maybe I had said the wrong word by mistake. So I said, in layman's terms, that "No Child Left Behind" wasn't around in 1975. The she got it, but by that time it was "case closed."

That really bothered me. I don't like to think that I am in a 700-level graduate course with a classmate who doesn't know what the word anachronistic means.

Fast forward to afternoon session in a 600-level Educational Research course. Our professor, Dr. James Snow, quite possibly one of the coolest professors I've ever had made a reference to the Symposium, using the word pontificate in his deadpan description which was quite entertaining. No sooner does the guy make his funny statement and the class starts laughing, but a girl next to me says, "What was that word you used? I don't know that." He responded, as I would have, that the symposium was a men's group in Greece, etc, etc. And she interrupted and said, "No, that word, ponfit?"
"Pontificate?" he asked her. "Yes, I don't know that," she responded.
I, along with most the class and Dr. Snow, told her.

My God!! These people are receiving Masters degrees! I agree that there is a lot of knowledge out there in the world, and no one can possibly know all of it. But, come on. Anachronistic and pontificate!?! It's not exactly Greek. And if you don't know a word, look it up, don't announce it!

One last thing...people should also be aware that Brazilians speak Portuguese, not Spanish. That, however, is another story.