... missed opportunity ...

...so there's this joke I read a while ago, where the wife is reading a magazine article and shares the following with her husband: "Honey, it says here that women speak about two times more than men do. How fascinating! Why do you think that is, honey?" The husband's response? "Uh, what?"

So it was rather amusing to hear on the news last night that supposedly this myth of women speaking more than men has been put to rest.

The researchers placed microphones on 396 college students for periods ranging from two to 10 days, sampled their conversations and calculated how many words they used in the course of a day.

The score: Women, 16,215. Men, 15,669.

The difference: 546 words: "Not statistically significant," say the researchers.

You can read about it here.

It would have been nice if they went a few levels deeper and investigated other stereotype assumptions:

1. # of unique words used: is it true that guys in general have a very limited vocabulary? That gals supposedly use a wider range of words in their dailyspeak?
2. content/context of words used: the stereotype is that guys talk about sex, booze, sports, technology and gals about shopping, clothes, makeup, fashion, and maybe some sex ... yes/no?

Yup, what a shame, a missed opportunity to delve into proving/disproving more than just the chatty gal/ taciturn guy myth.