Cheese and Rice! Blatant academic arrogance!
Unfamiliarity with arcane words now defines the rest of us as illiterate? OK, I accept the humorous presumption.
It's been a long time since I've run across a worse (better?) example of self-inflating pomposity.
Illiterate may well be the wrong word, but to reach a mass audience one is expected to write no higher than about an 8th grade level, IIRC.