DeadState just brought attention to a report published in the fall by the online writing enhancement service, Grammarly, which analyzed the comment threads of the presidential candidates’ official Facebook pages. The purpose was to find out which political base is best at communicating their thoughts in writing.
Five months of samples from Facebook comments, containing at least fifteen words from each candidate’s official page, were used to randomly select over 180 positive and neutral comments. Negative or critical comments were disqualified, since the point of the study was to analyze the writing of each candidate’s supporters.
A team of proofreaders identified the errors contained in each of the comments, 6,000 words in total.
The results varied considerably from each of the candidates, but it was clear that Donald Trump supporters were found to have the worst grammar by a large margin. Trump supporters committed 12.6 mistakes every 100 words, which ranks them last of the 19 candidate fanbase represented in the study.
Republican supporters committed more mistakes than their Democratic counterparts, with an average of 8.7 mistakes in 100 words in comparison to the Democrats’ 4.2 mistakes. The Democratic fan base also averaged slightly longer comments, according to the findings.
The winner of the grammar study is Lincoln Chafee. His supporters committed the least number of typos at an average 3.1 mistakes per 100 words. Jim Webb‘s supporters committed an average of 3.4 typos, while Bernie Sanders fans came in third with 3.7 typos in 100 words.
Carly Fioriana‘s and Hillary Clinton‘s supporters were tied with 6.3 errors per 100 words. Interestingly, Clinton’s supporters were the lowest rated Democrats on the list, while Fioriana’s fans were the highest rated Republican supporters.
While it’s important to acknowledge how conditions like dyslexia may prevent even the brightest minds to express themselves properly in writing, the incapability to use proper grammar may more commonly reflect a lack of education. And fortunately, the Democrats are working hard to change that!
Featured image by Michael Vadon. Permission to use under Creative Commons.
