When do you need words like "epaulement"?

Darr and I are watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee tonight, mainly because so far the pre-summer selection of shows sucks, and I'm missing some words (e.g., abseil) and getting some words (e.g., helodes, schuhplattler). Sadly, I'm noticing that the girls seem - to the outsider like me - to be getting words that are harder than the ones the boys are getting. For instance, the first girl we see up at the mike gets a word with no known etymology and no alternate pronunciations. Yeah, right. The next kid (a boy) gets the word "rigaree" which pretty much sounds exactly like it is spelled. Hmmm. Anyway, the coolest word I learned was kakistocracy. It's lovely because it can totally be used to describe the current administration. Here's Wikipedia's definition:

Kakistocracy, rule by the least-able or least-principled of citizens, is a form of government in which the people least qualified to control the government are the people who control the government.

The origin of this word is Greek, derived from the superlative of the Greek adjective kakos (bad), the superlative form being kakistos (worst).