Four wonderful words

All four of these were to be heard in the wild today in an editorial on NPR's "Fresh Air":

screed

meretricious

claptrap

splenetic[ally]

I love it when words like these are used on radio or TV programs. NPR is a particularly good habitat for them, but vocabulary on radio and TV, and even in many books, seems to be deterioriating lately.

Oh, and don't get me started on my rant about proofreading in books...