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New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th-Grade Level (medium.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was so stunned when I left college and realized how much I have to limit my vocabulary around most people. It made me feel distant from many of my peers.

To be fair, there are a lot of things that you learn in college that are supposed to be specialized for your field of study.

I was told that I was being condescending when I use words that nobody else understands. To put it in the words of one boss: @inetknght, you're smart and you do good work. But, @inetknght, you can't handle stupid. So I have to move you to another team.

It was kind've eye-opening to realize that stupid people don't just exist. They're all around us. Always have been. Being moved to my own team of one just so people wouldn't feel dumb around me definitely made me feel distant too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I've been lucky that many of the people around me were happy to learn. I haven't worked a white collar job yet so my work has been unrelated to the vocabulary. And people aren't insecure or defensive about education because they aren't payed to be educated. It was actually fun to teach the ones that wanted to learn. But I would also see lots of confused looks and so I lowered my vocab.

But I mean less terms like a-priori and more like flabbergasted or circumnavigate, pincer, dilapidated. Just higher reading level words that you might use in a description or as an adjective. nothing too jargony.