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.

I've heard it and forgotten what it means..

I remember the time my English teacher corrected my use of ‘priggish’ to ‘piggish’. And that was 20-odd years ago!

I’d want to see evidence of this!!

I have a feeling that that teacher was talking out of his/her arse. As an excuse for having got it wrong, perhaps?

Why is it always smoke that is 'acrid'? It's one of those words that is used thoughtlessly just because it has so often been used in the same phrase. It feels like the people who use it don't really care what it means: they just know that readers are programmed to infer a general sense of nastiness or intensity.

YANBU - it's a very common adjective used to describe smoke.

YANBU.

Was there a bear involved?

Teachers only know what they have been taught. If she has never come across the word then she won't know it.

One of my colleagues is one of the best teachers I've met but hiis vocabulary is more limited than mine and he has zero knowledge of traditional tales beyond what he has encountered at school.

A combination of EAL and having grown up in a family that did not value reading so he was never exposed to books as a child/teen.

PGCEs etc train you how to assess learning and have you analyse pedagogy. They don't teach you lists of vocabulary or subject knowledge or anything like that.

See my post above about children not being encouraged to read widely. Target setting leads to 'teaching to the test' and narrowing the curriculum. Young teachers now have been taught this way themselves and know no other way.

The story read by the teacher at the end of the day was a wonderful way of introducing children to literature and thereby to a better vocabulary. It was worth way more than all the Spag lessons but in most schools this seems to have been banned in favour of nose to the grindstone adherence to the National Curriculum, SATs and all that crap. I hate it.

Definitely not an uncommon word, especially in the context of smoke.

DD went to a high performing grammar and I recall receiving a letter from the headmistress including the line "the meeting will be led by Mrs Danvers and myself".

I agree.

We do still do story time (quality texts at a level slightly higher than we'd expect them to read themselves) each day. It's protected time and considered as valuable as any other part of the curriculum.

But it's true, a lot of the younger teachers are very much victims of having been 'taught to the test'.

I sat in an online lecture for Masters of education students recently and had to listen to one of the trainee high school teachers complaining that the academic articles we're reading all use such long words, and do they just do it to be superior and fancy? Because wouldn't it be better if they just used normal language? I nearly dislocated my eyeballs.

English is my second language, I have never lived in an English-speaking country and I know this word. It's not uncommon. How old is that teacher?

I'm glad someone is still doing it.

I've read this word in books, but I've never heard anyone say it, I don't think. I did know what it means though.

Bet it's been in Wordle!

Trainee teachers do have to pass a basic English and maths test!

English is not my mother tongue and I found the test laughably easy. I was shocked by how much fellow trainees struggled with it!

I am now a secondary MFL teacher and the amount of “would of”s and other quite basic mistakes my English native speaker colleagues are making is baffling.

Btw, I know the word acrid. And wrath.

YANBU, it's a pretty common word. But I suppose we all have gaps in our knowledge and vocabulary!

A common word. Surprised (and concerned) a teacher didn't know it.

Is she northern? I say 'would of' I know how to write it down tho!

I'm going to be honest. I read the OP and thought "yes, of course I know that word" then I thought "I can't actually think what it means at all right now". I continued to read the thread and realise I do know the word, I have a vague meaning and it's regularly used. Perhaps the teacher was as tired and full of carbs as I am and is now posting on Reddit about how embarrassed he is at having to look a word up in front of the kids.

Yes, I know and use the word. A good vocabulary usually comes from reading widely- I worry for my kids as they read a lot less than I did at their age. But I’m sure we all have gaps in our knowledge and still now in my 40s I occasionally come across words that others might think are pretty common words but that somehow I’ve just never seen or heard before. Perhaps that was the case with this teacher and this word.

I once got told off in front of the whole class in Primary school because the teacher had asked us to write a poem and I put my hand up and asked ‘does it have to rhyme?’ ‘Of course it has to rhyme. It’s a poem!’ snorted the teacher and the whole class laughed. 😐

This teacher was shit in general and my mum actually complained about her (for other reasons)- it was the one and only time mum did that (she was a teacher herself and almost always took the teacher’s side when I complained about something).

You're probably saying 'would've' which is a contraction of 'would have'. Writing 'would of' is quite different.

YANBU

I suppose it would depend on which words the teacher had in mind. S/he may have a poor vocabulary. Or s/he may have been objecting to the sort of pointless obscurity that academics (particularly in the social sciences…) tend to indulge in.

There’s an awful lot of superfluous language, and jargon, in academic writing which could be expressed more clearly in many fewer, more concrete plain words.