Trump Speaks At Fourth-Grade Level, Lowest Of Last 15 U.S. Presidents, New Analysis Finds

[riversedge]

Source: Newsweek



By Nina Burleigh On 1/8/18 at 12:41 PM


President Donald Trump—who boasted over the weekend that his success in life was a result of “being, like, really smart”—communicates at the lowest grade level of the last 15 presidents, according to a new analysis of the speech patterns of presidents going back to Herbert Hoover.


The analysis assessed the first 30,000 words each president spoke in office, and ranked them on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale and more than two dozen other common tests analyzing English-language difficulty levels. Trump clocked in around mid-fourth grade, the worst since Harry Truman, who spoke at nearly a sixth-grade level.


At the top of the list were Hoover and Jimmy Carter, who were basically at an 11th-grade level, and President Barack Obama, in third place with a high ninth-grade level of communicating with the American people.

The Flesch-Kincaid scale was developed in 1975 for the U.S. Navy to assess the relative difficulty of training manuals biased on word length and sentence length. A database of Trump’s words, compiled by the incomparable factba.se, ran the comparative analysis yesterday, in response to the president’s claim that he is “a genius.”

........................................

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/trump-fire-and-fury-smart-genius-obama-774169

---

Corrupt Trump will have to increase his language skills. te he



flesch scale trump use this President Donald Trump has the worst vocabulary of any modern president, a new analysis found. Factbase

Link to tweet

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Hoover, Carter, and Obama are the three most educated Presidents.

Hoover was an engineer.

Carter got a B.Sc., studied nuclear technology and participated in nuclear operations. Practically an engineer.

Obama taught Constitutional Law at Chicago Law School.

Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship to England, but he was good at communication; scaling down as needed.

Truman was a haberdasher and the last President to not obtain a university degree. He had one year at a business college.

[FakeNoose]

35. Hoover's time was before the age of television

I'm sure Hoover's live speeches were edited down to a lower level for the newspapers.

The one that surprises me is Gerald Ford, who was never considered any kind of intellectual or intelligent man. People used to joke that Ford took too many hits to the head during his college football days.

Trump's speaking level doesn't surprise me at all, I believe it's lower now than when he started out 2 years ago.

[Devil Child]

2. This is insulting to 4th graders

Trump is clearly operating at the lowest functioning grade level.

[riversedge]

3. yup. sad, very sad.

[John Fante]

4. "probably"

Way to go out on a limb there, Newsweek.

Trump is far and away the dumbest president this nation has ever had. aa

[PJMcK]

5. Harry Truman

President Truman was a voracious reader. In his book, "Plain Speaking," Merle Miller recounts how Mr. Truman would occasionally use a new word he had read but he would mispronounce it. He was trying to improve himself.

Trump could never do that because he would first have to learn to read.

[lagomorph777]

6. Maybe Melania could read "Hop On Pop" to him at night.

Maybe he'd even learn something.

[Journeyman]

7. That's mighty generous of Factbase. Ivanka should put it up on the refrigerator . . .

[trueblue2007]

8. my cats are smarter than Trump

Annie is Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay smarter than Trump

[crazycatlady]

34. much cuter and more entertaining too

Trump doesn't make hours of entertaining YouTube video like kittehs do.

[groundloop]

9. Interesting that there's a large grouping at about 9.5....

I'm sure that's where they aim in order to be understood by most Americans.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by 45*s low showing in this, but DAMN !!!!!

[PatSeg]

10. I find it rather curious

That GW spoke at an higher level than his father. Kind of hard to believe.

[dalton99a]

13. Evidently his wife made him read books on a regular basis

[PatSeg]

23. It certainly wasn't evident

in his speaking style. I wonder how bad it would have been without his wife's influence.

[IluvPitties]

11. Interesting that the two highest ranked were one-term presidents.

[Dreamer Tatum]

12. What's remarkable is the scaling

Not only is Trump an imbecile, but he sticks out like a dog's balls in his idiocy.

"Stable genius"

[gopiscrap]

14. Interesting

how did Trump make it through college?

[Dreamer Tatum]

16. Guessing he didn't nt

[gopiscrap]

17. everyone says he has a degree from UPenn

[Dreamer Tatum]

18. Rich daddy, laser printer nt

[gopiscrap]

19. OMG can he make me a Doctorate from say...Harvard?

sarcasm intended

[Bernardo de La Paz]

37. Not quite a doctorate, but Kushner's dad donated millions of dollars to get Jared in and through. nt

[harun]

15. Isn't communicating at the level of your constituents what you want to do?

Especially for Trumps constituents if he spoke well he'd be done. Even if reading a speech someone else wrote for him.

[DoctorJoJo]

20. Finally, Here Is Solid Proof ....

... that Trump is better than a 3rd grader! When Trump says he's "like," a smart person, what he means he has hands, feet, limbs, and five senses LIKE an actual smart person does, but he lacks the sixth sense, "good/common sense!" And certainly the lowest IQ of any of these prior POTUS's!

[left-of-center2012]

21. I ain't smart, but ...

"President Barack Obama, in third place with a high ninth-grade level"

I think he spoke much more educated than that.

[BumRushDaShow]

25. I think so too but

remember how he was insulted to no end, including here on DU, for being "too professorial" and that was the purported reason why he "couldn't speak to or relate to the white working class". And then he was told that he should "speak like Biden".

[left-of-center2012]

31. He did speak for some length

[MGKrebs]

22. Interesting. I suppose the smart guys can choose to speak at a level sure to be

understood by most people, but guys like Trump and W are probably speaking at their max capability. Not sure about Reagan, he might have been smart enough at one time but by the time he became pres his abilities were likely diminished.

[lark]

24. Which president is "dumber than a 5th grader?

Drumpf, drumpf, drumpf.

edited to fix typo

[EarthFirst]

26. W was a greater communicator than T?

Don’t worry; I hear Kid Rock has policial aspirations if you were worried our race to the bottom needs fuel!

[RKP5637]

27. And that's on a good day, with everything written on paper so he can follow the words. n/t

[livetohike]

28. I thought third grade was about right. I underestimated

him.

[RKP5637]

29. The deplorables will admire him, most hoping to have the vocabulary of a second grader. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

30. Wow ... 4th grade really isn't what it used to be. nt

[Mc Mike]

32. Less than half a Ford. rec, Nt

[truthisfreedom]

33. Why even bother? Hes such an obvious idiot that my republican

friends universally roll their eyes at his mention.

[burrowowl]

36. K&R

[Cha]

38. It's definitely NOT trump

[Liberty Belle]

39. My kids were more articulate than Trump in first grade.

The 4th graders I've known were all more well spoken in the English language than Trump.

[BootinUp]

40. Nailed the Bushes too. nt