A wordcraft regular points to this report which suggests that Sarah Palin "speaks at a higher grade level" than Joe Biden. The source is The Global Language Monitor, whose ludicrous claims that that English language contains (at the time of writing) exactly 997,311 words and will soon be reaching one million, have been ridiculed and debunked by just about every rational person with access to a blog. What then are we to make of their claims in this new, political, forum?
Well, for a start they claim that their calculation is performed by "a modified Flesch-Kincaid formulation". Hmm. That would be the Flesch-Kincaid READABILTY calculation then would it? Let's just say that again, a bit louder, READABILITY. There's a bit of a clue in the name. It's a relatively crude formula for calculating how easy a written text is to read. That's WRITTEN and READ. It's based on the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word.
Spoken text is a completely different animal. The validity of applying this particular method to spoken text is, to be as charitable as possible, dubious. But they do say "modified", don't they? They don't say how it's been modified (just as they don't say how they go about counting the words in the language) but let's suppose, just for argument's sake, that it's been modified by a magic wand that makes it applicable to speech. There is an even more fatal flaw in using the results to comment on the intelligence or credibility of the candidates. I'll say this nice and loud too, A HIGHER SCORE ISN'T NECESSARILY A BETTER RESULT.
When it comes to what politicians say I like clear, easy to follow concise English. I much prefer it to cunning constructions and clever words. It's much harder to hide a lie in a simple sentence than in a complicated one. What a lower score actually means is that the candidate in question has been more effective at getting his or her message across to more people. It's more accessible. Of course a score of 0 or less would make it comparable with Dr Seuss and nobody wants a(nother) President or Vice-President that talks like a children's book but a moderate score shows only that the speech is aimed correctly at the everyman that a shrewd politician wishes to reach. And what exactly is wrong with that?
(And, for the record, this blog entry has a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 9.6.)
An eccentric translation of the bible
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5 comments:
The methodology behind the Million Word March is a matter of public (and published) record.
The MWM has been discounted by a handful of critics that who invariably fail to acknowledge that there is a methodology. Their objections have been repeated by others who can't be troubled to actually look into our research. Those who do, end up writing fair, balanced articles like that found in this month's Smithsonian Magazine (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/million-word-march.html).
I would also note that our methodology has been tested by various government agencies and financial institutions, as well as by media the world over. Our work has been incorporated into dozens of academic journals, studies and books. Nevertheless, this handful of critics maintain that all these fine institutions have been 'duped'. (With a million words to choose from, you would think they could come up with any number of more accurate terms.)
And, yes, I will admit that we occasionally make typographical errors.
The MWM has excited thousands around the world to look into the language through fresh eyes, who are now documenting suspected new words that they find (and sometimes invent) in unprecedented numbers.
Please feel free to visit the Global Language Monitor and leave any and all comments.
PJJP
Paul JJ Payack
Nice of you to stop by. Thank you for taking the trouble to comment. You have your opinion. I have mine. I'd be quite interested to know exactly how you located a blog entry I posted only an hour ago though. Maybe you could pass the info on to everyone else.
I could use the hits.
Peace, love and happy counting.
The methodology behind the Million Word March is a matter of public (and published) record.
Funny, but when I click on the Predictive Quantities Indicator, or PQI, link "that attempts to measure the language as currently found in print (including technical and scientific journals), the electronic media (transcripts from radio and television), on the Internet and, increasingly, in web logs (blogs)" at the GLM page on the methodology for counting words in English (link) I get a 404 Not Found error. It could be a simple error on their web master's part, but maybe not.
Well, Smithsonian's article really just reported on it and hardly took a stand either way. I hardly think that words like "staycation" will stay around, but who knows.
So, Mr. Paul, is "epicaricacy" part of your word count? Just wondering!
I would love to read about the "methodology" behind this counting of words.
BTW, z, I love your picture!
There's also some good sense in an article on the Motivated Grammar blog. The very good point is made that speech often contains errors that are corrected within the sentence, making the sentence longer. When writing, though, these won't appear.
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