Yakety-Yak!

I read yesterday and saw a report this morning on Fox of the most absurd thing I have recently read or heard.

A University of Arizona team has done some research on female vs male in the talking department. Many times it has been reported that the ratio in one full day of talking is about 20,000 words for the gals and 7,000 words for the guys -- almost three times as much gabbing on the lady side.

In my long experience I have found this assessement of talking ratio to being fairly close to accurate. I, for one, don't feel that I talk that much -- my motto in this area is "say what you intend to say and then shut up." Embellishment is not necessary if you made your comments clear and understandable the first time.

Now my house has always been filled with three women until Rob and Travis came into the picture and took two away. If my math is correct, using the 20,000 to 7,000 ratio, the talk around the old homestead should have been cut by 40.299% -- it wasn't. Melinda somehow picked up some of the slack.

This research team at Arizona, led by Matthias R. Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology, has shattered the "chatty gals and taciturn guys" stereotype. Can their study be on the mark, or have they just been smoking too much cactus?

According to the team's report, microphones were attached to almost 400 U. of A. students, and recordings were made of them for periods ranging from 2 to 10 days. Calulations were then made of the number of words spoken by each of the sexes.

Here's what these researchers, who should have received an "F" for the study, came up with:
Women 16,215 words compared to 15,669 for the men. A mere 546 words difference between the sexes.

Mehl said, "Still the idea that women use three times as many words as men has taken on the status of an urban legend."

I honestly think that the thesis of the research is flawed because they did not take into consideration what were the situations and circumstances of the individuals when they were wired. For instance, suppose the study was done with some of the ex-MSU students that I know.

Here's Caleb recounting in detail a game in 1952 with the New York Giants getting a scratch single scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth against the Brooklyn Dodgers while playing in a light drizzle with the temperature hovering around 40.

Or Rob explaining the gory successful extraction in the ER at Wake Forest of an entire place setting of silverware, including the seafood fork, from a body orfice.

Or Travis expounding upon finding an obscure Black musician singing Blues while blowing on a jug and strumming a washtub bass at some obscure music festival in an obscure town in the Delta.

These guys and lots of others can be kind of chatty about their passions, and this would skew the statistics.

On the other hand you might record Tricia, Amanda or Laurette when they have just gone through some traumatic emotional experience like losing their keys, and all they do is cry -- no talking -- just sobbing. This would skew the study as well.

In my many years, and I ain't no psychologist, I have learned a little something about the fairer sex. I have never met one that didn't like to talk, and most of them all at the same time. If you don't believe it, do your own research and stick a microphone in your house.