This is not a piece from The Onion. It was produced by CNN.com.
President Obama’s speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.
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.
Yes, the president is an elitist. And, now, my friends, I quote Alexander Hamilton from Federalist. No. 1:
AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
What the fuck did he just say? I couldn’t understand a word of it.
A-Ham comes in with a Flesch-Kinkaid of 23.
You’re not supposed to understand it, apparently.
Bring on the Brawndo.
President Camacho: Shit. I know shit’s bad right now, with all that starving bullshit, and the dust storms, and we are running out of french fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution.
South Carolina Representative # 1: That’s what you said last time, dipshit!
South Carolina Representative # 2: Yeah, I got a solution, you’re a dick! South Carolina, what’s up!
President Camacho: Now I understand everyone’s shit’s emotional right now. But I’ve got a 3 point plan that’s going to fix EVERYTHING.
Congressman #1: Break it down, Camacho!
President Camacho: Number 1: We’ve got this guy Not Sure. Number 2: He’s got a higher IQ than ANY MAN ALIVE. and Number 3: He’s going to fix EVERYTHING.
Still valid…
Maybe he should add some pictures for the next speech.
Better be a PowerPoint presentation with colorful graphs because if he stands in front of a chalkboard, he’s going to look like a teacher and everyone hates teachers. Trying to teach people stuff is so condescending.
good idea! after all, Obama’s role model and fellow Illinois prez used powerpoint to great advantage
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
n/t
What a total failure this president is. Can’t even talk to America like they are a bunch of 6th graders.
What the fuck did he just say? I couldn’t understand a word of it.
I don’t know, but my guess is “if we screw this up, we’re fucked and this new country is fucked.” I don’t know what the literacy rate back then was, but that’s not the problem now. It’s reading comprehension sucks.
Someone call Mike Judge and Luke Wilson…
I am fervently resisting the urge to insert a rant at this moment.
Cud ya wait a minit wile I go fer anothr sixpak o Gutswill & a sak o chesewopers?
I can has cheezburger?
Resistance is futile.
I have to say, using Alexander Hamilton – who was possibly the biggest elitist asshole of all the Founders – in this context makes my head kind of hurt.
In other news, Rep Barton (R-TX) just accused the President of shaking them down to establish the $20b escrow fund. He just personally apologized to BP for this. Live, on my teevee, in the congressional hearing. I saw it. TPM recorded this: “Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), ranking member of the House Energy committee, where BP’s CEO is testifying today, just said “It is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown.””
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/06/great_national_tragedy_is_the_escrow_account.php?r
ef=fpblg
I didn’t count the number of words per sentence, or the number of syllables per word, in his statement.
I just clapped it out and the biggies appear the be: subjected,tragedy and proportion at three syllables while corporation and characterize have four.
I’m so glad I spent all that money in order to become an English teacher. It occasionally comes in handy.
Wow — fellatio on TV. Where’s the FCC?
He didn’t swallow, so it’s ok.
“the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph…“
Well, if THIS is the grade level of the people evaluating and reporting on the speech, no WONDER it went over their heads. The President at least knows correct English.
Slightly FEWER than four sentences – FEWER, you thrid-grade-educated moron. Less is for quantities, fewer is for stuff you can count – you know, like sentences.
Heh, nice pick; I hadn’t noticed it. I’m sure they get further and farther mixed up as well.
The fewer versus less thing is one of my pet peeves along with things like “for my friend and I”, and “he was laying on the floor” (was he a hen?), and other abuses of language.
If in doubt, make yourself the subject by taking “friend” out. That’s how I always remembered it.
Would someone do a Flesh-Kinkade of a Louis Gohmert speech?
How about Virginia Foxx?
Michel Bachmann?
Gov. Quittah?
Steve King?
Pete King?
Haley Barbour?
Jim DeMint? (“Waterloo” is a three-syllable word)
Allow me to translate:
The Articles of Confederation are oozing suck. If we can’t fix this shit, our union is fucked which is too bad because America is awesome. Can the people choose a government or is force the only thing people understand? Not choosing to ratify the Constitution will set the cause of human rights back 100 years because America is awesome.
The “language level” scammers provided the worst of all the misery that characterized my short brush with textbook editing. Their “standards” are based on nothing but some zombie’s opinion on what’s “hard” (ie, they might have to look up a word or figure it out from the context), and some bogus research designed to back it up.
Given the crap that comes out of the sausage machine once it meets the standards of language level, rote application of PC, inoffensiveness to every single offendable entity on Earth, strict avoidance of anything that might conceivably be scary, and any suggestion that there might be a child here or there that plays near a pond or climbs a tree without proper safety equipment or doesn’t wash her/his hands every five minutes so they can grow up to be truly OCD, I’m honestly amazed that anybody in this country takes the trouble to try and read at all. I’m no friend of organized religion but would rather see them reading the Bible than this stultifying junk — at least they’d get some sense of what good language looks like.
Or to put it succinctly, it makes me sick that CNN and the MSN treat this business as if it were anything other than a scam of the worst kind.
Considering that very few states let kids leave school before age 16, which for most is within their sophomore year, why is a 9.8 score a problem? I thought that Obama’s proficiency in English was one reason he was elected, but I guess it was all about keeping Sarah Palin from the codes.
Microsoft Word offers a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level score. The Gettysburg Address comes in at a grade level of 10.9 and the grammar checker would have Mr. Lincoln break one sentence up and say “…this nation or any other nation…” instead of “…this nation, or any other nation…”
The Federalist Papers excerpt comes in at 15.9; Word suggests no reviews.