Friday 6 July 2007

Stupid Euphemism of the Day

Being a chatterbox: having a larger lexical budget.

Oh well, at least it's been proved that men are just as prone to lexical expenditure as women. How dull must it be to associate with the 500 words grunter!

Women are not chatterboxes, scientists have found, putting pay to the age old myth that the fairer sex is prone to rabbiting on.

A study carried out over six years by US researchers found there is no significant difference in the number of words spoken by each sex on a daily basis.

Matthias Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona said he and his colleagues had set out to challenge the urban myth.

They recorded the conversations of nearly 400 US and Mexican male and female university students using a specially-developed electronically-activated recorder.

It found women spoke a daily average of 16,215 words compared to an average 15,699 words for men. The most talkative man used 47,000 words in a day while the least chose his words carefully and only said 500.

Professor Mehl concluded that the study showed no support for the idea that women have a larger "lexical budget" than men.

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