I share this interpretation, but I always figured in Eliezer's examples the hypothetical professor was so obsessed with passwords or sounding knowledgeable that they didn't bother to teach the meaning of 'post-utopian', and might even have forgotten it. Or they were teaching to the test, but if this is a college class there is no standard test, so they're following some kind of doubly-lost purpose.

Or it could be that the professor is passing down passwords they were taught as a student themselves. A word must have had some meaning when it was created, but if most people treat it as a password it won't constrain their expectations.

Also, I like that the comment system correctly interpreted my use of underbars to mean italics. I've been using that convention in plaintext for 15 years or so, glad to see someone agrees with it!