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I wish his speech contained more details. Those of us who read a newspaper everyday already knew just about everything he said. Hard to believe that this was actually too difficult for most Americans.
That said, actions speak louder than words, and yesterday was a big step in the right direction.
I just don't get it. Who comes up with this crap? The guy is an orator by nature. He has the gift of gab. How can you NOT hear his words and not understand them? It's one thing to not recognize the political undertones in his words. That takes a little more intelligence and practice. But its another thing to suggest that the people don't grasp the words themselves. This is all hogwash in my view.
Not necessarily AeroGuyDC. We have had a generation now of the "new" education model and I'm not talking just NCLB here.
Kids graduate HS and cannot read complex material. The SAT had to dumb down their tests because too many kids were getting low scores. A majority of adults, especially young adults, are functionally illiterate. You can find this information on the web, but it's buried in reports and studies.
Most are aware that the US is declining in math/science compared to other nations. Well reading comprehension is right up there too.
Not necessarily AeroGuyDC. We have had a generation now of the "new" education model and I'm not talking just NCLB here.
Kids graduate HS and cannot read. The SAT had to dumb down their tests because too many kids were getting low scores. A majority of adults, especially young adults, are functionally illiterate.
Well, you do have a point. Maybe i'm the one living in a dreamworld assuming that everyone likes to read, write, research, etc. like I do. And if not likeit, at least be able to do it. lol
The Flesch-Kincaid scoring scheme is a very elementary surface level metric, not a very reliable indicator of "intellectual" conversation. The equation is as follows:
FKRA = (0.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) - 15.59
Where,
FKRA = Flesch-Kincaid Reading Age
ASL = Average Sentence Length (i.e., the number of words divided by the number of sentences)
ASW = Average number of Syllable per Word (i.e., the number of syllables divided by the number of words)
As you can see, it relies on only two surface level variables. If one wrote gobbledeegook, as long as the # of syllables per word were high or sentence length was long, it would show up as having a high FK score. Run-on sentences, for example, would bias the value.
I'm planning on running a few of Obama's and Bush's speeches through Coh-Metrix, developed by U. Memphis's Graessar, McNamara, et al. who have been principle in the study of cohesion and coherence of student writing. Our research group has published workshop and main conference papers using this tool also. It takes into account not only this unreliable metric, but also taxonomy depth of nouns/verbs, LSA scores illustrating cohesion between paragraphs (how far the speaker is going off topic), etc. Unfortunately, their site appears to be down right now, but it's publicly available at: http://cohmetrix.memphis.edu/
"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."
(with a red-neck twang)
yea, whaaat did he say? somtin bout earl, he said earl was in da gulf! when did earl godown thar. dog gone it, who gave earl da keys to da truck? It didn't have no oil in it! Oh, oil, dats whaaat that Bama guy said not earl. ha ha, you though he said earl. Where's earl? I'll bet Earls looking for an ass to kick!
I just don't get it. Who comes up with this crap? The guy is an orator by nature. He has the gift of gab. How can you NOT hear his words and not understand them? It's one thing to not recognize the political undertones in his words. That takes a little more intelligence and practice. But its another thing to suggest that the people don't grasp the words themselves. This is all hogwash in my view.
Your pretty nice, i have another word for it and the word is not HOGWASH, but rather something, i cannot repeat!
I just don't get it. Who comes up with this crap? The guy is an orator by nature. He has the gift of gab. How can you NOT hear his words and not understand them? It's one thing to not recognize the political undertones in his words. That takes a little more intelligence and practice. But its another thing to suggest that the people don't grasp the words themselves. This is all hogwash in my view.
Well again, you have to consider who his "target audience" is...
The SAT had to dumb down their tests because too many kids were getting low scores.
I wonder how many people are even aware of that...
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