When you meet a stranger, what are some clues that they probably read a lot?

My daughter has a new boyfriend. He’s a typical cowboy. Wears jeans and cowboy boots, no matter how hot it is. Jeans are tight, big rodeo belt buckle, pair of work gloves in his back pocket. Just a cowboy. We were hanging out Saturday night, talking, and he used the word “unkempt.” My eyebrows went up and my daughter and I made eye-contact and she grinned a little, as if to say “I told you he was smart!”

There were other things he said which told me he’s a reader which is pretty unusual in this day and age….well, in any day and age, actually.

We were discussing our pond. I said I wanted to put in a waterfall.
He said, “That would be a NEAT water feature.”
‘Water feature???!’ :) He also named off a bunch of trees, one in particular, that Rick and I had been debating about what kind of tree it was. Turns out it’s a sycamore. He said, “That’s not the kind of tree you normally see, growing wild out in the middle of nowhere in Kansas. Someone planted it, or the original. Was there a homestead around here?”
There was. The foundation of the house was on the other side of the pond.
I asked him what kind of seeds it had so I could plant more in select locations. He told me they start new trees via their roots, like an elm tree. I forget what the official term that he used was.

The only time he tripped up was when my daughter used the word “Haycorn.”
He said, “Haycorn?”
We yelled “WINNIE THE POOH!! IT’S WHAT PIGLET CALLS ACORNS!!”
He laughed, and said he was going to add that word to his vocabulary.