A room temperature can of full sugar soda takes at most 2 hours to chill in a 0 °F freezer. A refrigerated can of full sugar soda takes about 45 minutes to get to just above freezing (the perfect temperature for Dr Pepper consumption).
Diet sodas take about half the time in both scenarios.
This is for 12oz cans.
I've got it down to a science.
My reading journey mirrors yours. When I entered the professional workforce, I was consistently met with vacant stares when I'd use whatever words I thought perfectly fit whatever I was describing. I came to find that using "big" words like that (examples I can recall: superfluous, inimical, vacuous, cogent, avuncular) made people think I was trying to show I was better than them. I had to pare my verbal vocabulary back to the most basic form so I could do my actual job.
Granted, I was in a "white collar" job surrounded by blue collar folks.