Do you know the meaning of this word?

[Missingmybabysomuch]

Just that really, my DD was doing descriptive writing at school about a fire. She wrote about "acrid" smoke and her teacher hadn't heard of the word and had to look it up. My DH hadn't heard of it either. It surprised me as I didn't think it was a particularly unknown word but now I'm doubting myself! So I just wanted a hive mind poll to see whether it's a word generally known or not.

YABU - It isn't a word I've come across before.

YANBU - I know what acrid means.

YANBU. I've come across this word a few times (usually in books).

A teacher has never heard of the word acrid? FFS. Acrid is a common word.

Yanbu it's not an uncommon word

Familiar to averagely well read / educated people, less familiar to others, I'd guess?

YANBU. It's a fairly common word when describing thick, dense smoke. The teacher should definitely have known it.

It's quite a common word I would have thought - but maybe I read a lot of descriptive books or dystopian books 😂 it's definitely been mentioned in news reports too I thought?

Well my DC teacher uses "would of" instead of have, so I can absolutely believe they have never heard of what is a very common word to see at least, imo.

I am noticing DD (15) and her friends have a much smaller vocabulary than we did. People who use proper but perhaps less well known words are ridiculed.
There seems to be an active desire to infantilise language and dumb everything down.

YANBU. It's a fairly common word when describing thick, dense smoke.

With a pungent, nasty, smell.

Sadly, I'm not surprised her teacher didn't know a commonly used word. We had this a few times with our DCs and their primary school teachers. It either wasn't an issue in secondary school or they stopped telling me.

I'd assume everyone had heard of that but I guess not. I suppose that it's understandable that a teacher would be among the people that wouldn't have heard of it, expecting a teacher to have a basic grasp of English is like expecting a policeman to have a basic grasp of the law: you'd think it was a given, but it really isn't.

Agree - shocking that a teacher has a such a limited vocabulary

I'd say it was a pretty common word. Shocking that a teacher didn't know what it meant!

It's very very common as a word, in connection with the smell of burning. 'Acrid smoke' is such a cliche I think my editor would have words if I wrote that.

The point is that the teacher looked it up.

I'm an English graduate and am constantly encountering new words or familiar ones, used in an unfamiliar context.

There's more to teaching than being familiar with the contents of the Oxford English dictionary.

And if Mumsnet is anything to go by, grammar, spelling etc is pretty patchy - even among naice people!

It’s a perfectly common word, but I can well believe there’s plenty of teachers that don’t know it.

I went to a primary school visit recently where the teacher was barely literate. Depressing!

I’ve seen this too.
Ds used the word “wrath” in his writing at primary and his teacher had never heard of the word. She looked it up once he insisted it was a real word.

This is very worrying. There is a big difference between not having heard of a particular adjective and not knowing how language actually works.

That is shocking! Can’t say I’m altogether surprised, though.
Isn't it high time trainee teachers had to pass a reasonably demanding English test (I don’t think GCSE is much of a reliable indicator any more) and be required to undertake extra training if they fail?

I would gladly provide a suitable test - 😉 - a long passage with misspellings, incorrect grammar/punctuation/ apostrophes, etc., and they’d have to write it out correctly, in full.
Just another thing that will happen when I’m a dictator.
Oh, and anyone saying that spelling and grammar don’t matter any more, will spend a fortnight in a rat-infested dungeon along with anyone else who pisses me off.😂😈

I might be wrong but I think the Oxford dictionary or whoever have changed it so that "would of" etc is now grammatically ok to use.

I was told this by an English teacher!

Yes I would have said it was quite a common word. It was used a lot at the time of the Grenfell disaster and since in connection. There were particular quotes in the news.

Very surprised a teacher didn’t know the word.

I would raise this with the head and ask that s/he do some basic training in staff literacy.

I would have thought anyone in the teaching profession would have an extensive list of synonyms for anger.

I’ve heard it. It’s pretty common.

Some teachers are a bit useless. I’ve never forgiven my English teacher for marking me down for a story where one of my characters met a grisly death. She’d corrected it to “grizzly” 🙄

YANBU.