Reminds me of an old story of a politician "slandering" his opponent in the campaign by telling the mostly poorly educated locals things like "Do you know what that man did at college? He matriculated!" in a tone that suggests that's something sleazy. There was no means to rebut it. It was true and if you then gave a vocabulary lesson to your voters, you would just be calling them stupid.
I don't have a citation. My understanding is that it is a true story. If you want to look for it, you might check for mudslinging political campaigns in the Deep South of the US prior to, say, 1950 (possibly even 1800's).
EDIT: Found a reference to this:
Reynolds told the backcountry crowds that his opponent had once sunk so low as go up to Harvard (pronounced HAW-vud). What did the man do there? Why, he "matriculated"! And, worse, he became "a thespian"! Imagine.
