Nothing more depressing than an in-class reading of "Romeo and Juliet" during my freshman year of H.S. The obvious illiteracy of most of these students floored me; nearly everyone was sounding-out and guessing at any words over 2 syllables. "Apothecary"? Dream on. I think it took us something like a week to read through that play, which could be performed in an hour or two.
Outside of fiction, how many of them have even heard of an apothecary? How many of them would be tripped up if it had said something more familiar, like 'pharmacist', instead?
