Methought the Kids Knew This Word

Woe is me . . . or perhaps I should say: "sad is me" or maybe "methinks I am sad" because yesternight,  methought that high school seniors knew the meaning of the word "woe" but today, while teaching Hamlet, I learned that the majority of students do NOT know the meaning of the word woe-- or as my fellow Language Arts teacher Denise said: "the distance between the students and the English language keeps growing larger."