Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Best Thing I Saw Today on the SOTU

This:



That's from The Guardian.  The best thing about last night's speech?  It was an upgrade on previous speeches from The One, which had an average Flesch-Kincaid rating of 9.2.  You can see the whole thing here.

Dumb and getting dumber.  That's our politicians.  But ya knew THAT, dint ya, Gentle Reader?

Update, 1645 hrs:  I guess I'm dumber, too.  I went looking for a blog-readability post but couldn't find one, even though I KNOW I've taken a quiz like that in the past.  Google is my friend, however, and I found a site that analyzes prose for readability.  I pasted the text from the post immediately below this one and got these results:

Grade Levels

A grade level (based on the USA education system) is equivalent to the number of years of education a person has had. Scores over 22 should generally be taken to mean graduate level text.
Readability Formula Grade
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 7
Gunning-Fog Score 9.1
Coleman-Liau Index 9.6
SMOG Index 7.5
Automated Readability Index 6.7
Average Grade Level 8.0

Text Statistics

Character Count 1,352
Syllable Count 436
Word Count 313
Sentence Count 20
Characters per Word 4.3
Syllables per Word 1.4
Words per Sentence 15.7
So don't come around tellin' me that my posts are inaccessible.  Do you have a blog?  Take the test and let me know how you fare... coz Enquiring Minds™ wanna know.

22 comments:

  1. It's not just the politicians Buck. And THAT is the biggest problem, the dumbing down of the electorate.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know men from my father's era who did well with less than a jr. high education. To finish high school was amazing for some of that generation. Yet, they did very well. Now, thanks to our education system and government, a high school education is pretty pitiful. We are being dumbed down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My Dad never had a day of college and did pretty well for himself. Me, too.

      Delete
  3. Well, Duh One IS the reincarnation of Lincoln, so he had to raise his score a little bit to give the thrill up the leg of Chrissy Matthews. No?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Have any of you dealt with college students lately? The level of their language skills, and cognitive skills is down right scary.

    If half of them survive to the age of 30 just from their street crossing ability it will be a miracle. Seriously.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't deal with college kids as much as I used to. But I've seen some pitiful new grads in bid'niz, in the way-back.

      Delete
  5. OK, I took the test using the script of today's post on Pebbles in the Sea and this is my score:

    Grade Levels

    A grade level (based on the USA education system) is equivalent to the number of years of education a person has had. Scores over 22 should generally be taken to mean graduate level text.
    Readability Formula Grade
    Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 10
    Gunning-Fog Score 11.3
    Coleman-Liau Index 10
    SMOG Index 8.1
    Automated Readability Index 10.4
    Average Grade Level 10.0

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting, Brian. I find your writing to be perfectly clear except for the odd British-ism from time to time. There's not THAT many, but I do have look up a word or two. ;-)

      Delete
  6. We used to run these tests on textbooks we adopted for Freshman and Soph. English. They can be a little misleading as a measure because they're partially based on sentence length and complexity, as well as the quantity of polysyllabic words. In other words, a book (or blog) written in simple, direct, clear language might seem to be less challenging, etc. But sometimes, in communication, you don't necessarily want challenging. If you get my drift. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm a BIG proponent of clear and direct.

      Delete
  7. Readability Formula Grade
    Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 6.4
    Gunning-Fog Score 8.7
    Coleman-Liau Index 9.3
    SMOG Index 6.6
    Automated Readability Index 5.7
    Average Grade Level 7.3

    Text Statistics
    Character Count 2,400
    Syllable Count 788
    Word Count 562
    Sentence Count 40
    Characters per Word 4.3
    Syllables per Word 1.4
    Words per Sentence 14.1

    FWIW - I just write from the heart man, from the heart. (Or whatever pops into my fool head. Heh.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just write from the heart man, from the heart.

      That's better than my modus operandi... where I pull things outta my ear. Or another orifice. ;-)

      Delete
  8. I saw that Gunning-Fog Score and immediately thought about hunting Tule Elk

    Is that sick?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Talking about declines in education levels, the SATs peaked in 1963 and have been in free-fall ever since despite the tests being "reformulated (i.e., dumbed down) and the average scores "re-centered" by adding 100 pts to the avg about 20 yrs ago. Want to feel even more sick? Try touring the Confederate Museum in New Orleans (2nd largest holdings in US besides the one in Richmond) and browsing over the letters the troops wrote home--and mostly enlisted, too. First thing that strikes the eye is the hand-writing--unbelievably elegant, flowing cursive. Today? They've even eliminated teaching cursive in some school systems! Letters? What are these things called letters? Next, one immediately notices the superior vocabulary and descriptive writing that those soldiers--mostly HS graduates--used--FAR superior to even most grad students of today. And, finally, one will note BOTH the superior logic of thought evidenced as well as their EQUALLY superior grasp of history, literature, art, etc., and their ability to allude to same in a coherent interwoven flowing whole.

    "I weep for the future.."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your points are all very well-taken, Virgil. We're producing educated idiots today, with primary emphasis on the latter. Our engineers are pretty good, if you discount the fact they can't communicate worth a damn.

      Delete
  10. I tried it on my brilliant blog with the following result:

    Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease 58.4

    Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 11
    Gunning-Fog Score 13.8
    Coleman-Liau Index 11.2
    SMOG Index 9.9
    Automated Readability Index 12.1
    Average Grade Level 11.6

    I picked one of my longer and more turgid pieces about drone warfare or things falling out of the sky. Something along those lines.

    I agree about the letters out of the American Civil War. The ones I have are magnificent and incredibly easy to read with amazing penmanship. It's a pity the ones written in pencil are so hard to read because they've faded over the decades. I scanned all of them over Christmas. I'll post a couple tonight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for posting that letter, HMS. You were right: beautiful.

      Delete
  11. I work with a couple of electrical engineers and an electrical engineer in training who haven't been taught a lick of the Canadian Electrical Code. Ummm, don't you have to know that when you're designing a building? What a sad state of affairs.

    ReplyDelete

Just be polite... that's all I ask.