Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?

Both our major-party VP candidates appear to be.

As a linguistics major, I had to smile at CNN's linguistic analysis of the VP debate last Thursday. Debate analysis: Palin spoke at 10th-grade level, Biden at eighth

I especially liked the tracking of the candidate's use of the passive voice, which the company conducting that analysis noted "can be used to deflect responsibility". Eschew the passive voice.

According to the analysis, here's what came out of their mouths:

	Biden	Palin
Number of words	5,492	5,235
Grade level	7.8	9.5
Sentences per paragraph	2.7	2.6
Letters per word	4.4	4.4
Ease of reading (of 100)	66.7	62.4
Passive voice used	5%	8%

So I wondered. How good a read is this blawg? Well, like everything internetable, we have an answer. You regular readers are all geniuses.

But, of course, you already knew that. Now get back to work.