Posted on 10/08/2015 10:24:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
The smart folk at Grammarly -- an online grammar checker -- examined Facebook posts written by supporters of the 2016 presidential candidates in a savvy bid to garner free press. It helped that the grammar site's findings confirmed the left's most treasured conceit -- that liberals are more learned than conservatives. Specifically, the study found that supporters of GOP candidates made more grammatical errors than supporters of Democrats, who also displayed a richer vocabulary. Oh, joy, I thought, once again Republicans are the knuckle draggers. I'm with the stoopid party.
Supporters of Democrat Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode Island governor, logged the fewest mistakes per 100 words (3.1). Carly Fiorina enthusiasts scored the fewest missteps for Republicans (6.3), which also happens to be the highest error rate among Dems (6.3 for Hillary Clinton friends). Every GOP candidate's followers placed behind Democrats. "Democratic fans made half as many mistakes per 100 words," Grammarly analyst Michael Mager told me. "As to why there is a divide, we can't really say," he said.
Last month, GOP front-runner Donald Trump chastised former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish. "He should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States," Trump harrumphed. Speak English, shouted headlines. There's an asterisk in there: Trump devotees speak English, but not necessarily well. Grammarly found that Trump fans fumbled 1 in 8 words they typed. Losers.
I called Tucker Bounds, who worked for John McCain's 2008 campaign and then Facebook, to get his take. "The results seem too convenient to be believable," responded Bounds, who now is with the social network Sidewire. I agree. You'd think at least one GOP candidate's followers would know where to put a semicolon.
Consider other Democratic stereotypes. According to the Pew Research Center, 51 percent of millennials lean Democratic. Is it wrong for me to suggest a generation weaned on mobile devices does not excel at grammar? According to Pew, immigrant citizens lean Democratic. You would think voters for whom English is a second language would make more grammatical errors -- such as poor subject-verb agreement. Mager responded, "We stuck to the same process, and this is what we got."
On the raw numbers of fans, the R's kill it. Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson each can boast more than 3.8 million Facebook fans -- double the number for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (1.5 million) and Clinton (1.4 million). Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has more followers than Sanders, yet it's not clear whether Paul will qualify for the next prime-time GOP debate. This is, after all, a numbers game.
Bounds was determined to put a positive spin on bad grammar. "Enthusiasm for the debate is going to skew toward using hybrid words," he offered, as in "Nobama." I'll add feminazis and dittoheads, courtesy of Rush Limbaugh. Bounds sees "the creativity of the Republican base." The other metric in which the right excelled is brevity -- 32.4 words per comment, versus the left's turgid 41.8 words. Brevity is the soul of wit.
Me? I speak Merican.
The correct term is “We-uns”
This quack study is probably going to be cited as gospel in our universities. Sample sizes of 10 are fine if your study is for a good cause!
I can’t wait to see what happens to liberals when they try to inform Muslims or illegals about how to use a plural possessive pronoun! The Muslim will respond with a singular possessive pronoun and follow that up with a knife slice to the throat.
Ever try to have an online discussion with a liberal on some political topic of the day? It is ad hominem, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
DIMS are incredibly insecure and need to concoct studies such as this to feel better about themselves.
Notably, my students, who are almost uniformly registered Democrats, can barely put two words together.
I don’t know who suffers more from the class essay requirement: My students while they are writing it; or me, trying to read what they wrote.
Courtesy of fellow Freeper “Jeff Chandler”:
“Me flunk English? Unpossible!”
Do you get the occasional gems such as this.
“Imagine a world without war, without strife, without hatred, without hunger, imagine a veritable Ethiopia.”
written circa 1972 BC (before computers) for a freshman English course
Depends on where you live; here it’s “we-all”. :)
I suspect a lot of Democrats are English majors. Beyond being able to correctly punctuate swear words on Twitter, their degrees are about as worthless as teats on a boar.
Odd, every discussion group I see that is populated by democrats is jammed with spittle-flecked rants chock-full of badly written and misspelled English.
I don’t believe it. My guess is that this was a study with a preconceived outcome.
In school, I had the worst handwriting and got bad grades consistently. It never improved. In my mind, the purpose of writing was to get your ideas down on paper as quickly as possible before the ideas faded. I had a lot to say.
That’s pretty terrible.
I get more narcissistic ramblings—The most common theme among them being he said he loved me until I got pregnant and he ran out.
It’s quite sad; but, at the same time, these women are back in school and trying to make something out of themselves and their lives.
You didn’t bring your dictionary witchudidju?
hmmm... studying the differences between the two with regard to the changes in zeitgeist might be worth some serious grant money.
Revolutionary world changers vs Kardashian dreams shattered.
Hell, should be worth three or four grants with careful editing of the proposal.
I’m too old, feel free to go for it.
:-)
A better survey would have evaluated the literacy of each of the members of Congress, by political persuasion.
Thanks, but I’m no spring chicken myself.
The professor gig is part of my glide path into retirement.
I don’t know... but four grants at 75-100k could be nice. And think of all the LOLS! from reading those papers. A shout out to MLA and you’d get tons of material. And maybe a book...
:>)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.