My vocabulary is less "obscure" and "high flown" than it is the case that the vocabulary of the average American is embarrassingly bad. And recently so. Yes, I have a larger vocabulary than most people, and always have had.
Yes. I was that bookworm/literary kid. Yes, I know lots of words, and use lots of words, that aren't in the most common circulation.
But stop. A great deal of my vocabulary would not have been considered "arcane" *even just 15 years ago*. I've watched this happen.
The words and associated concepts-including actual history, European folktales, foundational Western works of literature and plays-that Americans don't know today is astounding.
I'm talking about references that *any literate person, no college degree required* would have known 15 to 20 years ago. No, it's not that "the information is obsolete/it's just time marching on." It's NOT that.
That phenomenon exists, but this is not that. This is a profound cliff drop in literacy, and cultural literacy, that happened almost overnight with Millennials and Gen Z.
I didn't get "more arcane" recently. The population got signficantly more ignorant recently, and noticeably, and faster than we've ever seen in prior generations.
Hell--I'm watching fully grown adults react to seeing a word I use that they don't know exactly the way kids in 4th grade did when they picked on the bookworm kid.
That's embarrassing. You're THIRTY and instead of wanting to know what "Habsburg" refers to, you respond with "lol what does that EVEN mean ur so cringe."
I'm not the one who's "cringe."