Language difference between men and women
This post stolen directly from Cruciverb mailing list with credit to John Farmer and research from the team led by Marc Brysbaert. Cruciverb is the forum for people that design crossword puzzles for the big newspapers. The possies I roll with, you don't even want to know...
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Saw an article today on some differences between men and women in
recognizing words of the English language. Apparently we don't all share
the same language. (And this is news?) Based on Ghent University study
covering about 500,000 vocab tests, the lists below provide the dozen words
better known to men and the dozen better known to women.
For each word, numbers in parentheses are the percentage of men who knew the
word followed by the percentage of women. In brackets, I added the number
of appearances in NY Times crosswords since 1975, by editor - Shortz,
Maleska, Weng (per Xword Info; other DBs will have different data, of
course).
Source:
http://www.businessinsider.
N6mWSb
Ghent U. site: http://crr.ugent.be/
Here are the words that men were most likely to recognize over women:
codec (88, 48) [0]
solenoid (87, 54) [2 S, 3 M]
golem (89, 56) [12 S, 15 M]
mach (93, 63) [19 S, 17 M, 3 W]
humvee (88, 58) [0]
claymore (87, 58) [0]
scimitar (86, 58) [3 S, 6 M]
kevlar (93, 65) [2 S]
paladin (93, 66) [1 S, 4 M]
bolshevism (85, 60) [0]
biped (86, 61) [7 S, 10 M]
dreadnought (90, 66) [1 S, 2 M, 1 W]
And here are the words that women were most likely to know over men:
taffeta (48, 87) [4 S, 5 M]
tresses (61, 93) [12 S, 6 M, 2 W]
bottlebrush (58, 89) [0]
flouncy (55, 86) [0]
mascarpone (60, 90) [1 S]
decoupage (56, 86) [0]
progesterone (63, 92) [0]
wisteria (61, 89) [2 S, 2 M, 1 W]
taupe (66, 93) [25 S, 15 M, 1 W]
flouncing (67, 94) [0]
peony (70, 96) [18 S, 20 M, 1 W]
bodice (71, 96) [8 S, 1 M]
So if you hear of a biped taking a claymore to a codec, that's likely coming
from a guy, and good chance he doesn't know much about flouncy decoupage.
One other list worth sharing - the 20 least-known words in English (all
recognized by fewer than 3% of test takers). At first glance I figured none
of them has appeared in puzzles. Wrong! Seven have actually made it into a
grid at some time, though none since the '90s.
genipap
futhorc
witenagemot
gossypol
chaulmoogra
brummagem [1, Maleska '93]
alsike [2, Maleska, '79, '92]
chersonese
cacomistle [1, Maleska, '77]
yogh [1, Shortz, '98]
smaragd
duvetyn
pyknic
fylfot
yataghan [1, Maleska, '89]
dasyure
simoom [3, Maleska, '87, '92, '93; 2, Shortz, '95, '97]
stibnite
kalian
didapper [1, Maleska, '88]
...
By the way, if you'd like to participate in the Ghent study, you can do that
here: http://vocabulary.ugent.be/
----------------------------
Saw an article today on some differences between men and women in
recognizing words of the English language. Apparently we don't all share
the same language. (And this is news?) Based on Ghent University study
covering about 500,000 vocab tests, the lists below provide the dozen words
better known to men and the dozen better known to women.
For each word, numbers in parentheses are the percentage of men who knew the
word followed by the percentage of women. In brackets, I added the number
of appearances in NY Times crosswords since 1975, by editor - Shortz,
Maleska, Weng (per Xword Info; other DBs will have different data, of
course).
Source:
http://www.businessinsider.
N6mWSb
Ghent U. site: http://crr.ugent.be/
Here are the words that men were most likely to recognize over women:
codec (88, 48) [0]
solenoid (87, 54) [2 S, 3 M]
golem (89, 56) [12 S, 15 M]
mach (93, 63) [19 S, 17 M, 3 W]
humvee (88, 58) [0]
claymore (87, 58) [0]
scimitar (86, 58) [3 S, 6 M]
kevlar (93, 65) [2 S]
paladin (93, 66) [1 S, 4 M]
bolshevism (85, 60) [0]
biped (86, 61) [7 S, 10 M]
dreadnought (90, 66) [1 S, 2 M, 1 W]
And here are the words that women were most likely to know over men:
taffeta (48, 87) [4 S, 5 M]
tresses (61, 93) [12 S, 6 M, 2 W]
bottlebrush (58, 89) [0]
flouncy (55, 86) [0]
mascarpone (60, 90) [1 S]
decoupage (56, 86) [0]
progesterone (63, 92) [0]
wisteria (61, 89) [2 S, 2 M, 1 W]
taupe (66, 93) [25 S, 15 M, 1 W]
flouncing (67, 94) [0]
peony (70, 96) [18 S, 20 M, 1 W]
bodice (71, 96) [8 S, 1 M]
So if you hear of a biped taking a claymore to a codec, that's likely coming
from a guy, and good chance he doesn't know much about flouncy decoupage.
One other list worth sharing - the 20 least-known words in English (all
recognized by fewer than 3% of test takers). At first glance I figured none
of them has appeared in puzzles. Wrong! Seven have actually made it into a
grid at some time, though none since the '90s.
genipap
futhorc
witenagemot
gossypol
chaulmoogra
brummagem [1, Maleska '93]
alsike [2, Maleska, '79, '92]
chersonese
cacomistle [1, Maleska, '77]
yogh [1, Shortz, '98]
smaragd
duvetyn
pyknic
fylfot
yataghan [1, Maleska, '89]
dasyure
simoom [3, Maleska, '87, '92, '93; 2, Shortz, '95, '97]
stibnite
kalian
didapper [1, Maleska, '88]
...
By the way, if you'd like to participate in the Ghent study, you can do that
here: http://vocabulary.ugent.be/
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