Regarding State of the Union addresses, apparently they've been dumbed down over the course of U.S. history.
Here's a cool graphic showing the decline in the vocabulary and level of writing in State of the Union speeches since the founding.
They use the Flesch-Kincaid grade scale, according to which Obama's speeches are at a 9th grade level. George W. Bush's and Clinton's come out just a little ahead at the 10th grade level.
By contrast, early presidents from the late 18th and early 19th century were speaking with vocabularies indicative of a post-graduate education.
It's kind of a stupid measure since it's just quantifying how many words and how many big multisyllabic words are used in a given number of sentences. You could argue it shows a shift to a simpler, more plain-spoken, and less ornate form of English. Fine. But it seems to me to still show American politicians have gotten dumber over time.
Here's a cool graphic showing the decline in the vocabulary and level of writing in State of the Union speeches since the founding.
They use the Flesch-Kincaid grade scale, according to which Obama's speeches are at a 9th grade level. George W. Bush's and Clinton's come out just a little ahead at the 10th grade level.
By contrast, early presidents from the late 18th and early 19th century were speaking with vocabularies indicative of a post-graduate education.
It's kind of a stupid measure since it's just quantifying how many words and how many big multisyllabic words are used in a given number of sentences. You could argue it shows a shift to a simpler, more plain-spoken, and less ornate form of English. Fine. But it seems to me to still show American politicians have gotten dumber over time.