A friend of mine told me he ran The Blah Blah through an internet test to see what grade level I wrote at. I came out somewhere in the Middle School years. His blog (here) was somewhere around the High School level. He acted smug about it, to which I responded, “You’re a big turd!” and ran home to watch cartoons.
I decided today to run the test myself, and here are the results:
| Summary | Value |
|---|---|
| Total sentences | 367 |
| Total words | 3110 |
| Average words per Sentence | 8.47 |
| Words with 1 Syllable | 2099 |
| Words with 2 Syllables | 705 |
| Words with 3 Syllables | 238 |
| Words with 4 or more Syllables | 68 |
| Percentage of word with three or more syllables | 9.84% |
| Average Syllables per Word | 1.45 |
| Gunning Fog Index | 7.33 |
| Flesch Reading Ease | 75.96 |
| Flesch-Kincaid Grade | 4.77 |
Pretty cool, huh? Let me draw your attention to “Average Syllables per Word… 1.45″ That’s like half my words are one syllable and half are two. How moronic can I be? I need to use more big words like “vacuous” and “artichokes.”
You’re probably wondering what the last three scores mean. Let me explain. First, the Gunning Fog Index. This measures how many years of schooling would be necessary for someone to understand my blog. It goes from 1 to 17, first grade to post-graduate level. My score of 7.33 means that someone three months into the 7th grade would be able to understand The Blah Blah. Turds.
According to Juicy Studio, where I took the test, TV guides get a 6 (so I’m better than that) and Reader’s Digest gets an 8. I’m more dumbed down than a Reader’s Digest, the literature made famous for it’s position of honor within the bathrooms across the nation.
Now, the Flesch Reading Ease (not Flesh Reading Ease, you pervs). This measures, on a scale of 1 to 100, how readable you are. Authors are urged to keep within the 60-70 mark. My 75.96 means I’m very readable. I’ll take that as a benignant thing.
Finally, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade is another rough measure of how many years of school would be necessary to understand the writing sample. It’s on a scale of 0 to 12, ending at your senior year in High School apparently. My score of 4.77 means most fourth graders would be able to understand me by the end of the school year. Which is weird, because I can’t understand them.
So there you have it. Contrary to popular belief, if you read The Blah Blah, it’s no indication that you’re any smarter than anybody else. But I still like to think you’re all better looking.
Do the test on your own blogs and let me know how you scored.
8 comments
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July 10, 2008 at 12:34 pm
bdstimpson
Hmm… We could almost be twins. I’m okay being readable to a kid about to enter 7th grade.
Total sentences 94
Total words 860
Average words per Sentence 9.15
Words with 1 Syllable 577
Words with 2 Syllables 212
Words with 3 Syllables 55
Words with 4 or more Syllables 16
Percentage of word with three or more syllables 8.26%
Average Syllables per Word 1.43
Gunning Fog Index 6.96
Flesch Reading Ease 76.55
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 4.85
July 19, 2008 at 5:33 pm
mel
I come out at:
Gunning Fog Index 12.79
Flesch Reading Ease 41.07
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 8.52
That’s not so good. I’m just a share-my-thoughts-and-family-life blog for friends and family… it isn’t as though I’m deconstructing theology or satirizing modern politics. Good thing most of my readers have graduated high school.
July 26, 2008 at 8:08 pm
jakestimp
Wow, Mel. I’m in awe of your awesome scores.
August 6, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Jessie
I just did this, finally.
Well, I had fewer syllables per word than you, at 1.44.
But my GFI was 10.64, FRE was 68.96, and FKG was 7.53.
Crazy all the math stuff they do to figure that out.
August 6, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Jessie
Oh, and it’s weird that The Bible was listed as 6 on the Fog Index…obviously they didn’t use KJV.
August 15, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Bill
I think lower scores are actually better; more people will be able to read and understand them. A higher score means more people will find your writing too much like work and not as much fun.
These is such a thing as the power of words. Stuff that is easier to read is often seen as being better written.
I heard that the Fog Index was named by a college student who had to re-read a passage several times to understand it. He made the effort to summarize the passage to aid his comprehension. When he finished his summary, he realized he had a 10 word sentence that said the same thing as the much longer passage from the textbook that used many multi-syllable words and long run-on sentences.
That exercise convinced him that many college level texts are written to impress the author’s colleagues, not to educate students. He said he felt the writer was trying to “Fog” him, not teach him… thus the “Fog Index.”
August 26, 2008 at 10:23 am
jakestimp
That’s great – the Fog Index really is a measure of the level of “fog” in writing.
August 26, 2008 at 10:25 am
jakestimp
Jessie, you are so hard to understand.
If only I had the IQ of a sophomore in high school; then I could read your blog.