Has the Language of the State of the Union Become Progressively Dumber?

By ⋅ February 13, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment
U.S. President Obama delivers his State of the Union speech between Vice President Biden and House Speaker Boehner on Capitol Hill in Washington (Photo: Charles Dharapak/ Reuters)

U.S. President Obama delivers his State of the Union speech between Vice President Biden and House Speaker Boehner on Capitol Hill in Washington (Photo: Charles Dharapak/ Reuters)

According to the Guardian in Britain, the language of the State of the Union has gotten progressively dumber.

The newspaper analyzed the reading levels of State of Unions from George Washington to Obama’s speech Tuesday night and found that — surprise, surprise — reading levels have gone down.

But in this context, it may not be a bad thing.

Tad Devine has analyzed his fair share as presidential speeches. He’s worked as a campaign adviser for Gore and Kerry as well as many leaders from around the globe.

Discussion

2 comments for “Has the Language of the State of the Union Become Progressively Dumber?”

  • tustintweeter

    Several grammatical errors in his speech, which seem acceptable to most people today:  “good-paying jobs,” for example, instead of “well-paying jobs.”
    .
    I once heard Michelle Obama start a sentence with, “Me and Barack….”  Is spending more on “preschool for all” the answer?  Is this strategic dumbing-down to connect with the voters?

  • Susan Wright

     

     

    The
    British paper, The Guardian claims
    that the State of the Union addresses are being increasingly “dumbed down.” But
    use of a test of writing to evaluate presidential language is misleading.
    Presidents today assume that most people will listen to the State of the Union
    address, not read it, whereas presidents before radio and TV would assume the
    opposite. Spoken language generally uses shorter sentences than the written
    form.

     

    Beyond
    this point, I find the example used by The
    Guardian misleading. In defining “sequester”—not a word we use about federal
    spending unless we have some connection to Washington politics—President  Obama was not “dumbing down” language but
    making the current political use of this word accessible to the broad audience of
    Americans with their amazing variety of cultures and first languages. That is
    an approach initiated by reformers like Noah Webster who saw his famous dictionary
    as an expression of the American revolutionary and democratic impulse to liberate
    language from the elevated forms that were only accessible to the upper strata
    of society in Europe. Perhaps The Guardian didn’t
    understand this quite fundamental cultural difference between the United States
    and Great Britain.

     

    Susan
    Wright

    Santa
    Cruz, California