Words

It’s been said that women speak, on average, about 20,000 words per day, while men clock in at a measly 7,000. Now, while this difference of 13,000 words between the genders is undeniably interesting, if you think I’m going to delve into it in any way, shape, or form, then you’re absolutely crazy. (I get in enough trouble with women as it is. I certainly don’t need to go out looking for it.) However, in the spirit of journalistic integrity, I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least one professional opinion on the subject:

And now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to shift our focus to the 7,000 words per day that a given male supposedly speaks, which – at least in my case – seems to be ridiculously high. If you do the math, assuming 8 hours of sleep a night (and no talking in your sleep), that comes out to roughly 437 spoken words per hour – or about 7 words per minute – which I find to be nothing short of laughable.

On a good day (e.g. a Saturday) I’d guess that I end up at only around 100 or so spoken words, and that’s if I’m feeling particularly chatty. Heck, there have even been days when my first words have been to a cashier at the grocery store sometime during the late afternoon or early evening. (And now that there’s self-checkout, I can usually get out of that, too!) But I suppose examining the weekend isn’t the most accurate means of determining the number of words I speak per day, so what follows is a painstakingly researched replication of my verbal output during an average weekday.

6:40 a.m. (Upon waking): “Ugh. Is it Saturday?” – 4 words

6:40 a.m. (Upon realizing that it is not, in fact, Saturday): “$#@#$%.” – 1 word

6:45-6:48 a.m. (Singing “Amarillo by Morning” in the shower) – 137 words

7:25-7:28 a.m. (Singing “Gentle on my Mind” in the car on the way to work) – 282 words

7:45 a.m. (Upon taking my first sip of coffee at my desk): “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, it’s like liquid heaven!” – 5 words

8:00 a.m. (As a co-worker approaches my desk for something work related): “I’m busy. Come back later.” – 5 words

8:37 a.m. (Upon reading something funny on the internet): “Ha ha!” – 2 words.

9:02 a.m. (As the same co-worker again approaches my desk): “I’m busy. Come back later.” – 5 words

10:37 a.m. (As the same co-worker again approaches my desk): “I’m busy. Come back after lunch.” – 6 words

12:04 p.m. (After swallowing my first bite of lunch): “I should really learn how to cook someday.” – 8 words

1:37 p.m. (After feeling like I should drop a few buzzwords in order to pretend I know what’s going on around me): “We don’t want a knowledge silo situation here, so I suggest we leverage the cloud in order to facilitate and streamline our entire communication strategy.” – 25 words

2:23 p.m. (After being woken from a deep slumber at my desk by the sound of a nearby phone ringing): “Huh? Whazzat? Knowledge silo!” – 4 words

3:14 p.m. (As the same co-worker again approaches my desk): “I’m busy. Come back tomorrow.” – 5 words

4:00 p.m.: “Woo-hoo! Quitting time!!” – 4 words, assuming that “woo” and “hoo” each count as one.

4:05-4:08 p.m. (Singing “Luckenback, Texas” in the car on the way home) – 262 words

5:37 p.m. (After swallowing my first bite of dinner): “This tastes like old socks. I probably should have ordered pizza.” – 11 words

6:07 p.m. (After seeing a spider scurry across the floor): “Whoa! That’s as big as a bulldozer! Die! Die! Die!” – 10 words

7:56 p.m. (After realizing that I can make a seven-letter word in Words With Friend but there’s no room for it on the board): “@#$#$#!!!” – 1 word

9:42 p.m. (Practicing to be an old man): “Get off my lawn!!!!” – 4 words

And so, when you add it all up, it comes out to exactly 781 spoken words, which means that I’m running, on average, about a 6,219 spoken word deficit per day. That’s a lot of unused words, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re all building up inside of me, and if so, will I ever have to use them in order to bring my system back into equilibrium? Basically, I’m afraid that someday I’ll hit a breaking point and suddenly have thousands upon thousands of unused words flooding out of me, essentially turning me into a babbling idiot who may have no choice but to run for public office. It’s a scary thought, to be sure, but maybe there are some ways I can mitigate the risk. For example, maybe somebody wants to buy some unused words off of me? I’ll sell them for cheap! And if that doesn’t work, I guess I can just try to be more vocal, in order to try and use up more of my daily word allotment. Hmmmmm.... maybe I can start taking a shower in the morning and the evening. That’s a whole extra song to sing!