<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">
<br class="">
There’s a new post on the Web of Language:
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Is Donald Trump smarter than a third grader?</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">
One regrettable feature of the presidential campaign season is the inevitable ranking of candidate speeches by reading level. And so, after the first Republican debate, <em class="">Politico’s </em><a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/donald-trump-talks-like-a-third-grader-121340.html#.VdDdLXiZnV1" data-mce-href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/donald-trump-talks-like-a-third-grader-121340.html#.VdDdLXiZnV1" class="">Jack
Shafer</a> announced with glee that Donald Trump “talks like a third-grader,” while Ted Cruz’s language sounds more ninth grade. However, anyone who spends time around schoolchildren will tell you neither claim is true.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">
Shafer calculates candidates’ grade level by running transcripts of their debate responses through a formula known as the Flesch-Kincaid reading scale. Whether or not you agree that Trump is simple and Cruz, high-brow—among Republican candidates, simple has
proven to be a vote-getter and high-brow is a dirty word—the fact is that formulas like Flesch-Kincaid, designed to measure the understandability of writing, fail miserably at that task, and they’re completely useless for rating speech. . . .</p>
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Read the whole post on the Web of Language: </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><a href="http://bit.ly/1LjwQTu" class="">http://bit.ly/1LjwQTu</a></div>
</body>
</html>