Jan Freeman writes The Word column for Ideas.
Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based writer, editor, and multimedia
producer.
Christopher Shea writes the Critical Faculties column for Ideas.
 Send the Brainiac bloggers a
comment on a post.
  Week of:
November 11
Week of:
November 4
Week of:
October 28
Week of:
October 21
Week of:
October 14
Week of:
October 7
Mind the gap
Shop talk What he learned in the newsroom Mr. Boffo lays an eggcorn Curse of the mummy's tummy More in Word Watch  |
« Obsessive website of the week | Main | Sex machine » Friday, April 27, 2007Blogging both waysThe popularity of the Web-based Gender Genie ebbs and flows; for some reason it's caught the attention of major-league bloggers again this week. Men, you may have heard, tend to assert, challenge, and pontificate more than women do -- rhetorical fingerprints the Genie can identify even in short chunks of text. Wondering if six years of marriage, and a few sessions of spousal coaching, had mellowed the opinionated beast within (don't blame me, blame Darwin), I fed some of my recent posts into the Genie's maw. Success! My post yesterday, on whether brain teasers can stave off mental decline, was tagged as decisively female. The ratio of female-to-male elements was 294 to 231. I take that to mean it was persuasive but not in-your-face. If I read it aloud at a dinner party, my wife wouldn't kick me under the table. But, alas, not total success. Three other recent posts skewed male by ratios of 436/366, 202/103, and 223/86. (For each analysis, I omitted block quotes of text by other authors.) So it's back to the drawing board. Or is it? The post I've just finished typing is just barely on the distaff side.  Posted by Christopher Shea at 04:05 PM
|
