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The way members of Congress speak in the official record has gotten significantly simpler according to a new analysis by the Sun Light Foundation.
Today’s Congress collectively speaks at a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 grade level. The Gettysburg Address comes in at an 11.2 grade level and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is at a 9.4 grade level. All these analyses use the Flesch-Kincaid test, which equates higher grade levels with longer words and longer sentences.
In looking at the data more closely, a few other important patterns jump out:
- Controlling for other factors, it is generally the most moderate members of both parties who speak at the highest grade levels, and the most extreme members who speak at the lowest grade levels. This pattern is most pronounced among freshmen and sophomore members.
- Prior to 2005, Republicans on average spoke at a slightly higher grade level than Democrats. Since then, Democrats have spoken on average at a slightly higher grade level than Republicans.
- Some of the decline in grade level since 2005 is because junior members speak at a lower grade level than senior members, and some of it is because senior members have simplified their speech patterns over time.
- On average, the more words individual members speak on the floors of Congress, the simpler their speech tends to be.
While it is possible the Congress really is getting dumber, it is more likely this drop in grade level is a result of the changing way in which people use their floor speeches. In the past, those floor speeches were mainly directed at other members of Congress, lobbyists, donors and select people in the know. More recently, thanks to the internet, members of Congress are using their time on the floor as part of an outreach directly to regular people. It is now not uncommon for floor speeches to become videos and go viral, making certain members mini-celebrities.
Personally I think members of Congress moving away from trying to deliver the most flowery, over the top oration possible is a no great loss.
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Who watches floor speeches in Congress these days, anyway? And what is the relevance of a speech when really all “Congress” is at this point is a group of officials put in place by wealthy interests to do the business of accepting influence and payoffs in the pursuit of serving said interests.
This headline wins the internet for the day. We can all go home now.
I’ll be playing outside if anyone needs me.
The idea that sentence length = education is just weird to me.
Given that the Sunlight Foundation ranks King’s “I Have A Dream” speech as ninth-grade level, it really can’t be said that flowery oration necessarily qualifies as great oration. Not that anything uttered on the floor of Congress today is even on the same rhetorical planet with a King speech.
The speeches have gotten dumber because the people speaking have gotten dumber. It’s alarming to listen to some of them who seem to have the literacy level of a fifth grader. And these unknowing, obviously under-educated people are running our country. No wonder we’re in such a mess. Thanks, Jon.
Tried to read a diary here a day or so ago that had sentences about 6 lines long. Gave up.
Hell, the teabaggers by themselves are probably responsible for the entire drop.
Sort of puts me in mind of Archie Bunker to his dear Edith: “Dummy Up!” That would be a great message to spread to many in Congress.
Exactly.
In fact, speaking in simpler words and shorter sentences is probably a good thing. Too many speakers and writers go for the most complex latinate words possible, when their point would be better made by choosing direct, forceful Anglo-Saxon-based words.
I heard a story about this early this morning on npr, and one congressman interviewed said that he had been raised by a grammar teacher mother to speak clearly and simply. Can’t recall who he was (I was still waking up), but did notice he spoke grammatically and in complete sentences.
Those characteristics are more important in communicating your point.
I once worked for a judge who made me crazy because in going over my drafts, he frequently changed my punchy direct words to latinate, multi-syllabic (flowery) words. Grrrr.
I pride myself on knowing the best word for the purpose, which is sometimes a latinate multisyllabic one, but most of the time it isn’t.
Flowery speech and the use of obscure vocabulary have little or nothing to do with great writing. I’d rather read Hemingway anyday than Cormac McCarthy, but both are great writers.
I agree with sixgill that what they have to say is largely bullshit.
Agree. My description: Simple declarative sentences. Words of one syllable.
Most in Congress now are using “word salad” to obscure what they are actually doing behind the curtain. None of it really means anything IMO.
Word salad worked for Palin. :-)
Mark Twain:
I apologize for writing you a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one.
Using Flesch-Kincaid, Lincoln’s speech figures at about 8th-grade level.
Like disabled truck driver Leroy says in Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shlioh”: “Nobody knows anything”.
From George Orwell’s “Politics And The English Language”:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Great line. Takes a little more thought to take the junk out.
Omit adverbs.
We are so lucky Samuel Clemens did not think to cut it out.
Telling that to Jon is like telling him never to breathe.
That is one of my passthrus when editing my own writing. I delete every adverb that is not essential, and
veryfew of them are.Since you put it that way, Orwell’s third point covers “omit adverbs”.
Do you have an opinion regarding Jon’s “gotten” in his headline? (I think it’s a tough call, probably ‘got’ belongs there instead, while the meaning would better be conveyed by ‘become’).
Good point. I find it useful to focus on adverbs bc they’re the ones easiest to spot & omit.
For awhile I wrote 1/2 a monthly 4-page report on the day the U.S. foreign trade figures were published. One page was a data printout. One page was a discussion of the data. The other two pages were a short piece of research. I traded off with a colleague: one month he did the data analysis & I did the research, the next month the opposite.
I got so that I could write the exact amount of words to fit the space on almost the first try, constrained though it was.
As for headlines & writing on FDL, it’s a verboten subject for me. Can’t see a reason for commenting on it, as comments could create hard feelings & change nothing.
When Wordperfect and MS Word included Flesch-Kincaid & Gunner Fog readability analysis, I ran some of my stuff through them, and lo, my course materials including lectures avg’d around 10th grade, and behold, my memos and my committee writing were at 13th-14th grade levels.
Moderates obfuscate to conceal the fact that they have no coherent political philosophy or moral compass, and that their vote is open to the highest bidder
Presumably your course materials were the superior product. :-)
I think moderates have no monopoly on that, not that there are any moderates inside the beltway anymore.
Given that Congress is nothing more than a collection of rich, ignorant jag-offs it’s hardly surprising their “rhetorical skills” are on a par with their intellect.
Yes, I agree. By quoting and referring to pseudo-science we are giving it credibility. Now we have another irrelevant measurement of Congress, and another irrelevant wedge issue about how America has lost it’s way.
If that were true, it would be a good thing bc U.S. ‘way’ has been wrong for a long long time.
I don’t think we’ve lost the way because Congress is at 10.6, down from 11.5. “We’ve got to get back up to at least 10.9!” (Everyone knows the real reason for our descent is due to gays, girls and gun control.)
There must be a better way to judge communication than vocabulary and sentence structure.
There are always the ideas that are communicated & the evidence that supports them
But I jest.
After reading a biography on Edward R. Morrow, it’s easy to notice why he communicated so well. One of his teachers in college (who also had a crush on him – might’ve even dated at one time; can’t remember) always told him to remember the golden rule: “Less words carry more freight.” Later in life listening to him on radio and later television, she would send him letters of his own speeches with her editorial red ink. Every letter would have less and less red ink of hers as time went by.
Except that it should have been ‘Fewer words…”, but he turned out OK though.