Posted on 08/14/2015 10:20:26 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
Donald Trump isnt a simpleton, he just talks like one. If you were to market Donald Trumps vocabulary as a toy, it would resemble a small box of Lincoln Logs. Trump resists multisyllabic words and complex, writerly sentence constructions when speaking extemporaneously in a debate, at a news conference or in an interview. He prefers to link short, blocky words into other short, blocky words to create short, blocky sentences that he then stacks into short, blocky paragraphs.
The end result of Trumps word choice is less the stripped-down prose style of Ernest Hemingway than it is a spontaneous reinvention of Ogdens Basic English, the pared-down lexicon of 850 words selected by early 20th century linguist/philosopher C.K. Ogden as the bedrock of a new world language. In the August 6th Republican candidates debate, Trump answered the moderators questions with linguistic austerity. Run through the Flesch-Kincaid grade-level test, his text of responses score at the 4th-grade reading level. For Trump, thats actually pretty advanced. All the other candidates rated higher, with Ted Cruz earning 9th-grade status. Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and Scott Walker scored at the 8th-grade level. John Kasich, the next-lowest after Trump, got a 5th-grade score.
Trumps low grade at the debates wasnt a fluke. His comments from an August 11 news conference in Michigan earned only a 3rd-grade score.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Communication with the voter is the objective. Third grade is about the right level.
I suppose when your general goal is to obfuscate what you actually intend that using a greater vocabulary is one of the many effective tools a person can use. A side benefit of such verbiage permits the walking back of what was communicated by interpreting the higher language which was misunderstood.
However, there are quite a few people who revert to simpler language to actually speak from the heart.
If he spoke like William F. Buckley the democrats couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Pollutico strikes again... and misses.
He's gone down a bit because he tweets like a 12-year old
So, “Hope and Change. Yes, we can!” - was Barack Hussein Obama’s Shakespearean retort to God. How wonderful is dichotomy?
“Bunch of sore losers..... sniff sniff.”
“What did they lose exactly.”
Most of the country.
Welcome to Trump Country!
Besides, he's a whole grade up on most news outlets where low-info voters are told what to think.
Cruz is doing the correct thing - he is speaking at a level (9th grade level) people can understand. The language he would use in front of the Supreme Court, which he has done numerous times, would be speech regular people would have a hard time following.
It shows intelligence to know which type of speech to use with which groups of people.
So did Hemingway.
If we needed a rocket scientist as President or Harvard law professor....then fine, state that as a requirement to enter the office. Oddly, it’s not a profession where we require either the professor or scientist. Frankly, it just needs to be a guy with legit executive experience, who can hire or fire as necessary, and make decisions based on facts (not statistical averages of polled voters).
So Kasich scores one grade higher. Big whoop.
A senior editor for an online media site is all about words.
A president is all about judgment, right action, and persuasion—including to our entire citizenry.
Trump’s style is joltingly different, but it is hard to fault his ability to get his message across to our average citizen.
Besides, look at this: our average college student is reading at the 6th or 7th grade level:
http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6174
No wonder Trump’s style is what reaches the “common man”.
OMG!
Is this kind of elitist contempt supposed to draw “inferiority complex” voters?
I wouldn’t vote for the idiot for anything. He reinforces my opinion of him daily
3rd graders don’t vote
GeronL contra mundi!
That’s okay, we’ll reserve a spot for him on the bandwagon.
It was “lost”, past tense.
Lol
According to what assessment standard?
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