Headscratchers / Good Morning, Vietnam

• After the discussion about "the Great Ca-Ca", Cronauer turns to playing a hypothetical situation with one of his students, using a bitchy waitress spilling soup on his brand-new suit to see if he can generate a fitting reaction. The student responds with "I remain reticent." This is supposed to be, in essence, a low-level ESL class; how does a student already know an advanced term like "reticent"?
  • Probably from a dictionary. When you don't speak a language very well, it's easy to glom onto a word and not realize most native speakers don't use it in day to day speech.