Left-wingers are more likely to use swear words than their right-leaning counterparts, a study of thousands of Twitter accounts has suggested.I've always assumed this is because, at bottom, an example of the innate conservatism of the Left, manifesting itself in particular devotion to the use of simple, unadorned, Anglo-Saxon words. That has to be it, right?
While conservative-leaning individuals are, perhaps unsuprisingly, more likely to use religious terms such as "God" and "psalm", those on the liberal end of the political spectrum are heavy users of "f***" and "s***" online.
Researchers at Queen Mary University in London analysed more than 10,000 Twitter users who follow either the Republican or Democrat party Twitter accounts.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Huh
Another study, telling us what's obvious:
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4 comments:
Even if you take the premise of the study at face value (and I don't--what you follow on Twitter isn't a particularly robust predictor of political affiliation--I read this blog after all) it's still garbage because you can't control for age, which is almost certainly a much more robust predictor of comfort with various segments of the language.
Even if you take the premise of the study at face value
I don't. I do find it amusing, though. And at least on my FB feed, it's 100% true. But my FB feed isn't probative.
*(&)(&)(&)(& Yeah!
I mean, seriously, what else can you say to this?
OK, if we must be serious, I'd guess Brian has a point about age, and I'd guess as well that you might draw a difference based on religious affiliation or non affiliation.
And probably the most significant thing here, given that it's a university study, is that someone is probably getting their masters' degree or Ph.D. based on this, with all its flaws that Brian mentions, and may end up being a full professor.
They swear so much because they care so much. And when you're really, really, really concerned about something - so much that you have to let others know about it in order to change the situation - you don't have time to choose words that better support your argument. That may be because you really have no argument; you just really, really, really care.
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