I was lucky to survive the war and also lucky to serve in Europe and was assigned to the 232nd Infantry Division posted in Austria. The 232nd set up a Divisional School where those of us who got in the war late were able to go to school early. That is, we had the chance to take college courses and were fortunate to have the school in Zell Am Zee, Austria which was a famous Spa in its day. I took three courses in the short time I was there before being liberated to go to school again when I was released at the pleasure of the Army - that meant that I could be recalled at any time the Army chose.
One of the courses (all three helped, especially the Algebra course which saved me when I took it again at Rutgers), was Psychology. This was the most interesting and I was particularly taken by the experiments we underwent as part of the course. In one of these experiments we had to learn ten unusual words with their meanings in a short time. I, of course, thought I was a hot shot and would show how smart I was with a very impressive curve. It didn't work out that way.
I remember that the class was gathered in one room with each of us sitting apart from the others at tables with a sheet of paper upside down on the top. When the word "go" was said, we were to turn over the paper and start to learn those ten words. There was dead silence and then the rustle of papers being turned over and the sound of thinking filled the air.
I had never seen any of those words before. Instead of reviewing them and taking the easy ones first I furiously began to read the first over and over again until I thought I had it down. This went on until I woke to hear laughter and was poked on the shoulder until I was aware that the test was over.
To this day I remember three of those words. I have used them whenever I wanted to show off. You attained power by knowing these esoteric words if you are able to use them subtly. A hapless individual skewered by the pejorative use of "in-erudite gomeral", really was out-classed. Simply put, the person I gunned for was called an "unlearned idiot". The third word, "pellucid", simply meant, 'perfectly clear'. For a while I knew several more but they slipped away one at a time.
Now, about that learning curve: We plotted ours and I found that I was sort of below the middle. There was one guy there we all saw out of the corners of our eyes who looked at the page and turned it over. He already knew all of the words. His curve was straight up. Needless to say he was unpopular while we were at that school.