Language guru: Obama speech too 'professorial' for his target audience

CNN ^ | June 16th, 2010

[TaraP]

President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster Tuesday night was written at a 10th-grade level, which, according to analysts, may have gone over the heads of many in his audience...

Tuesday night's speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.

Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence "added some difficulty for his target audience," Payack said.

He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: "That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge -- a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's secretary of energy."

[PogySailor]

“No, he really does have on invisible clothes!” said the emperors adviser.

[gogeo]

President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster Tuesday night was written at a 10th-grade level, which, according to analysts, may have gone over the heads of many in his audience...

Those elitist @ssholes just can't help themselves, can they?

[rlmorel]

I’ll watch, but only if I get the “Ow, My Balls” channel 24 x 7...

[gogeo]

...typical white woman that she was.

[Fresh Wind]

Quoth Dingy Harry:

Obama had "no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one."

Perhaps he should have delivered the speech in Ebonics. It might have been more effective.

[maggief]

Obama speech too 'professorial' for his target audience

[Jimmy Valentine]

How about instead "It was a rambling, self serving, uninformative and generally dumbazz speech"

I think even a first grader can get that one.

[GlockThe Vote]

So true. Obama is neither smart or well educated beyond anything having to do w communist ideaology.

[Bon mots]

10th grade level?
So we know that Obama could not have written it.

Anyone who even tried to read Michelle Obama’s thesis also can see that she certainly did not write it with her 3rd grade writing skills.

Maybe his terrorist ghost writer, Ayers wrote it?

[mikey_hates_everything]

"President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster Tuesday night was written at a 10th-grade level, which, according to analysts, may have gone over the heads of many in his audience supporters..."

Fixed it.

[visualops]

hahahaha lolol dee dee dee

[stephenjohnbanker]

” Obama Money”

[Shire]

Okay, so I pay a fortune in taxes to fund the school system and it’s turning out people who are too stupid to understand anything that is said? What the heck am I paying for?

[sergeantdave]

“”That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s secretary of energy.”

Come on, people. That sentence perfectly oozes with Harvard smarts and omniscience. Whoever wrote that deserves an extra dog biscuit and a new flea collar. Would you have preferred:

See Spot!
See Spot run.
Run, BP, run!

[stephenjohnbanker]

“They promised a brighter day.....tomorrow....”

And “ tomorrow” when the notes come due, a number of them will be living in the south of France.

[Reeses]

At what grade level were the lies written?

9.8, which is 15 years old, not mature enough to drive a car. This is too high level for the average Obama voter.

[Carley]

Hilarity squared

[raybbr]

From the guy's website:

The Readability Analysis of the Oval Office address appears below:

• Passive Voice — With some 13% passive constructions, the highest level measured in any major presidential address this century.  In political speaking,the passive voice is generally used to either deflect responsibility, or to have no particular ‘doer’ of an action, at least when speaking about himself or his Administration.  Otherwise, BP was the clear ‘doer’.

[agere_contra]

Obama’s neglect of the worst environmental disaster in US History.

American history doesn't stretch as far back as 1979?

I did not know that.

[Diogenesis]