SOTU: Dumbed down and recycled

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Jacoby
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25 Jan 2012, 4:35 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDRiGIUYQo[/youtube]

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012 ... 12236.html

Quote:

President Obama's 2012 State of the Union address again rated at an 8th grade comprehension level on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test — the third lowest score of any State of the Union address since 1934.

The University of Minnesota's Smart Politics conducted an analysis on the last 70 State of the Union addresses and found that President Obama's three addresses have the lowest grade average of any modern president. "Obama's average grade-level score of 8.4 is more than two grades lower than the 10.7 grade average for the other 67 addresses written by his 12 predecessors," they conclude.

No wonder idiots think he's such a mesmerizing speaker. :-!

Basically that backs up what most people always say about the SOTU, "same old ****". Obama has literally been giving the same speeches for years now.

iamnotaparakeet
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25 Jan 2012, 5:06 pm

What grade level did George W. Bush get for his two terms worth of State of the Union addresses?

Jacoby
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25 Jan 2012, 5:22 pm

Dubya's were at an average of 10.4.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolit ... mas_so.php

this whole breakdown if you're interesting.

Bush Sr in 1992 is the only president to have a speech lower the Obama.

I have to imagine this is deliberate, a pretty sad reflection on the American people.

Last edited by Jacoby on 25 Jan 2012, 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tadzio
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25 Jan 2012, 5:38 pm

Undoubtedly, it wasn't dumbed down enough for Plain English Fanatics' self-denying Richard Mitchell's "worm in the brain" problems.

Tadzio

minervx
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25 Jan 2012, 5:52 pm

Perhaps I am the only one who bothered to read up on the Flesch Kincaid reading comprehension test.

The level of reading comprehension is purely judged by words per sentence and syllables per word.

Hardly indicative of intelligence.

GoonSquad
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25 Jan 2012, 6:01 pm

he was just being considerate of the tea party folks. You know, trying to break it down for them.

I think it's sweet. Remember, repetition is the key to comprehension.

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Master_Pedant
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25 Jan 2012, 8:47 pm

Jacoby wrote:

This contradicts other measures of "grade level".

http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/ ... l_language

Regardless, what the hell were you hoping for? Hegel? Sometimes, simplicity is an asset in rhetoric - certainly a hell of a lot better than obscurantism.

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Master_Pedant
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25 Jan 2012, 8:54 pm

Tommy Christopher wrote:

Quote:

“The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level. Longer sentences and sentences utilizing words with more syllables produce higher scores. Shorter sentences and sentences incorporating more monosyllabic words yield lower scores,” the University of Minnesota’s Eric Ostermeier explains.

By this measure, the song Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious would probably clock in at around Stephen Hawking’s grade level. By contrast, The Art of War is written in very short sentences, with few syllables, but I wouldn’t want to hand it to a third-grader. The study itself notes some of the ways its score can be skewed:

Quote:

Dragging down Obama’s Flesch-Kincaid score are the series of short sentences written – perhaps for dramatic effect – on a number of policy issues.
On the state of the American auto industry:
“We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.”
On the need to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure:
“So much of America needs to be rebuilt. We’ve got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy.”
On the importance of passing a payroll tax break extension:
“There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.”
On remembering the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden:
“All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves.”

You get the idea.

By themselves, tools like this scale, or word-counting/clouding, are of little, if any, value. The true effect of a speech like this is difficult to measure, and even harder to convey.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/politico ... ing-level/

All in all, the fact that people give these f*cking "studies" any time of day reduces my optimism of humanity's prospects.

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visagrunt
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26 Jan 2012, 11:32 am

It seems to me that this is a reflection on the body politic and not on the leaders delivering the address. I was rather under the impression that American politics was dismissive of élitism--at least in form. If Romney can be attacked for speaking French, how vulnerable is a President--of either party--for using, "high-falutin'," language?

I think that it's abundantly clear that the language used in speeches rarely reflects a politicians actual intellect. After all, Clinton's addresses rank 11th of 13 on this assessment scale, yet he was a Rhodes Scholar.

If this is what it takes to get your message across to the American people, then so be it.

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Aldran
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26 Jan 2012, 6:01 pm

Hey, not to bring something up that yall seem to have overlooked or anything..... But do you know how much speech writers make in Washington DC? Speechs are written not by the people giving them, but by English Majors (Egads, I think we've found the ONE proffession an English Major can actually use their chosen degree to make money at!).......

Also, instead of targeting Obama, or Bush, why dont we apply all of these "Measures of Intelligence in other people" and apply them to the entire content of Fox News for the year of 2011? I think the results there would be worth far more of our time then Obama's little one hour speech saying things that were really a surprise to nobody (Honestly, what were you all expecting? Him to stand up and proclaim himself a duck? geez.....).

And hey, lets not stop there, lets apply this to ALL of media. There was a study done back in the 90's of just such a thing, and I would provide it but my reason for procrastinating going to the store has disappeared and I don't have time, a short search didn't produce what I was looking for. But, if memory serves (And it may not), I seem to recall hearing that the average News Cast was written at ~ a 6th Grade Reading level, and the reason for this being so that their "Target Audience" would include as many people as possible. The idea being that, just like school, the news is important enough to be shared with the lowe(r/st) common denominators.

So please, unless we seriously want to go back to deciding who's going to get a job based on the style of their writing, can we get past doing something so pointless as analyzing something that was created to feed the masses, just because they didn't make the construction of it transparent, or amazingly superior?

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Tadzio
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27 Jan 2012, 1:36 am

Jacoby wrote:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDRiGIUYQo[/youtube]

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012 ... 12236.html

Quote:

Hi Jacoby,

I cited your post to Dox47, and his response was:

Dox47 wrote:

There's this great movie line, I don't know if it's original to the film it appears in, but it seems appropriate here.

"The first time someone calls you a horse you punch him on the nose, the second time someone calls you a horse you call him a jerk but the third time someone calls you a horse, well then perhaps it's time to go shopping for a saddle."

If we substitute "says 'WTF?'" for "calls you a horse", I'd say you've been called a horse at least a good dozen times in the last few months or so. Time to go saddle shopping?

Yet, I made the same remark about the dire dangers of dumbing everything down to the 8th grade level in society as expressed by Richard Mitchell ( http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/index.html ) and I was subsequently told:

Dox47 wrote:

So far, it's taken me to whichever level it is that houses condescending people who overestimate their own intelligence; it's a promotion from the fanatics wing. My job here is to occasionally deflate them a little, poke the ole ego with a sharp stick. It's ultimately for their own good, they don't get to leave the superiority complex level until their egos have deflated enough to pass through the grating. The pay isn't great but the work can be rewarding.

Is "The Idiocracy" officially here in North America for everybody, or ELSE???

Tadzio

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