Donald Trump has the grammar of a fifth grader, study says
Donald Trump might have trouble if he ever appears on "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?"
An analysis of the speeches of Republican presidential candidates by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that The Donald's grammar is about that of a fifth grader.
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Trump's speaking style -- often rambling and seemingly off the cuff -- has become one of the many bizarre hallmarks of his entirely unconventional campaign.
He remarked recently that he is highly educated and that he has "the best words."
The study, entitled "A Readability Analysis of Campaign Speeches from the 2016 US Presidential Campaign," didn't find Trump's rivals faring much better. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders all scored between sixth- and eighth grade levels.
Trump also scored lowest in vocabulary, coming in at the seventh-grade level.
Trump's grammar isn't just bad for this year -- he's also pretty close to being the worst of any president measured. Trump barely ekes it out over -- go ahead and take a guess -- George W. Bush. Abraham Lincoln scored the highest.
Trump scored low, but he also showed the greatest ability to change his grammar depending the audience. In other words, Trump is a grammar chameleon who can change to suit his listeners.
"Candidates give speeches to differing types of audiences over time, ranging from small gatherings with a specific issue in mind to larger general ones," the study noted.
Elliot Schumacher and Maxine Eskenazi of Carnegie Mellon authored the study, which looked at the campaign speeches of the presidential candidates and previous presidents.
The study also looked at the likelihood that candidates would use the same words in many speeches.
By this measure, Clinton easily leads. Cruz comes in dead last, highlighting his tendency to touch on the same topics with the same words in each speech.
"We can see that Hilary Clinton has the highest standard deviation and so the biggest change of choice of words from one speech to another, while Ted Cruz varies the least in his choices," the study noted.
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Topics Donald Trump Elections
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
