Example of words (from another HN comment). Not sure I would way someone not knowing what "Michaelmas term" is means they can't read. I don't know this word (in my defense english isnt my first language).
They were allowed access to Google. If you didn't know what Michaelmas was, and couldn't guess from the 'mas' suffix and the word 'term', then you could just Google it.
I knew all three but I had some advantages - English is my first language, I'm British and mire (Quagmire is still used to describe a bad situation that's hard to escape from as well as it's original meaning - so not a huge leap to what mire is) and blinkers (idiomatically - "he had his blinkers on" is still used for example) are still in use (I wouldn't say common use but not extinct either) and Michaelmas comes from liking history and looking up the term at some point in the last 30 odd years.
> Michaelmas term, mire, and blinkers.
Example of words (from another HN comment). Not sure I would way someone not knowing what "Michaelmas term" is means they can't read. I don't know this word (in my defense english isnt my first language).
They were allowed access to Google. If you didn't know what Michaelmas was, and couldn't guess from the 'mas' suffix and the word 'term', then you could just Google it.
I knew all three but I had some advantages - English is my first language, I'm British and mire (Quagmire is still used to describe a bad situation that's hard to escape from as well as it's original meaning - so not a huge leap to what mire is) and blinkers (idiomatically - "he had his blinkers on" is still used for example) are still in use (I wouldn't say common use but not extinct either) and Michaelmas comes from liking history and looking up the term at some point in the last 30 odd years.