I spend a fair amount of time walking users through new-to-them tools. These are all people who use computers for their 9-5. Some people are able to find a named option in seconds, and others struggle. I witness people moving the mouse down the menu like they are reading each entry in order, sometimes even going past the one they're looking for, at which point I usually point it out.

I (and I assume maybe you) have a way of taking in the whole menu at once and pattern matching to the visual image of the word in my head. I don't read the words, I look for a visual match. The target word jumps off the page as quickly as if they were color coded.