Bowie on Palin

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Wed Jun 15 20:59:49 UTC 2011


http://weirdnews.aol.com/2011/06/13/sarah-palin-writing-level_n_874790.html

The silliness over applying Flesh-Kincaid readability stats to Palin's
e-mails can safely be ignored -- the only worthwhile bit is at the end:

---
"Given her portrayal of herself as very much an Alaskan I had expected to
find a lot of 'Alaskanisms' in her emails," said University of Alaska,
Anchorage English Professor David Bowie. "But there were actually very few."
The one regionalism Bowie noticed that popped up was Palin's use of the word
"outside" for things beyond Alaska's borders.
---

Commenters over at Jezebel had the usual fun with David's name:

http://jezebel.com/5811617/sarah-palin-praised-for-writing-at-eighth+grade-level

--bgz


--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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