<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="">New Analysis Ranks Presidential Candidates by Their Supporters’ Grammar</h1>
<img src="http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/wp-content/uploads/GrammarPresidentialCandidates.jpg" class="" alt="Adam Gabbatt of The Guardian newspaper holds images of possible Republican candidates, from left, former Penn. Sen. Rick Santorum, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Donald Trump, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and below, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, as he interviews Howard "Cowboy" Woodward holds images during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) ORG XMIT: MDCK161" height="651" width="1000">
<h2 style="font-size:16px">A new analysis
conducted by Grammarly, a proofreading app, analyzed the spelling and
grammar of comments on each presidential candidate’s Facebook page.
Guess which political party’s supporters made mistakes at nearly twice
the rate of the other?</h2>
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Published: October 7, 2015 | Authors:
<a class="" href="http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/author/emily-atkin/" rel="author">Emily Atkin</a>
| <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/06/3709463/grammar-presidential-candidate-supporters/">ThinkProgress</a> | News Report </div>
<div class="" style="line-height:18pt">
<p>Bernie Sanders supporters might think you’re great, but Donald Trump supporters think your an idiot.</p>
<p>Grammar-wise, that’s at least what might be derived from a <a href="https://www.grammarly.com/grammar-check">new analysis</a> released Tuesday by the proofreading app <a href="https://www.grammarly.com/grammar-check">Grammarly</a>.
By analyzing the spelling and grammar of comments on each presidential
candidate’s Facebook page, the analysis found that Republican supporters
made mistakes at nearly twice the rate of Democratic supporters.</p>
<p>To get their results, Grammarly went to each candidate’s Facebook
page, taking comments that were at least 15 words long and expressed
either positive or neutral feelings about the candidate. Then,
researchers randomly selected at least 180 of those comments to analyze
for each candidate.</p>
<p>The analysis — intended by Grammarly to be “a lighthearted look at
how well the 2016 presidential candidates’ supporters write when they’re
debating online” — found that, for every 100 words written, an average
Democratic candidate supporter made 4.2 mistakes, while an average
Republican candidate backer made 8.7 errors. It also asserted that
Democratic supporters have larger vocabularies, using 300 unique words
for every 1,000 words they use, compared to Republicans who only use
only 245 unique words for every 1,000.</p>
<div class=""><img class="" src="http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/06121115/grammar-prez-638x378.jpg" alt="grammar-prez"><p></p>
<p class="">CREDIT: GRAPHIC BY DYLAN PETROHILOS/DATA FROM GRAMMARLY</p>
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<p>Of course, there was more room for error on the Republican side,
which has nearly three times as many candidates. In addition, many
Republican candidates have a lot more Facebook supporters, meaning the
pool from which Grammarly’s researchers picked its 180 comments was much
larger. For example, Lincoln Chafee only has 9,526 Facebook followers,
while Donald Trump has 3.8 million. Overall, the average number of
Facebook followers for Republicans was 1.1 million, while the average
for Democrats was about 591,000.</p>
<p>Taken individually, however, Democratic supporters did better than
their Republican counterparts when it came to spelling and grammar.</p>
<p>According to the Grammarly, former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee — likely receiving the <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/07/its-hard-out-here-lincoln-chafee">best campaign news he’s had in a long time</a> — has the most grammatically savvy supporters. Donald Trump’s backers make the most mistakes.</p>
<p>Here are the top ten candidates (plus Donald Trump) ranked in terms
of their Facebook supporters’ grammar skills, according to Grammarly:</p>
<div class=""><img class="" src="http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/06121218/grammar-prez2.jpg" alt="grammar-prez2"><p></p>
<p class="">CREDIT: GRAPHIC BY DYLAN PETROHILOS/DATA FROM GRAMMARLY</p>
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<p>Those who didn’t make the top ten included former Florida Governor
Jeb Bush — whose supporters came in 12th with 7.9 mistakes per 100 words
— and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), whose backers came in 17th with 8.8
mistakes per 100 words. The rest of the rankings can be found <a href="http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/10/06/democrats-crush-republicans-in-grammar-chafee-on-top/">here</a>, where Trump supporters, of course, rank as the most likely to break grammatical rules.</p>
<p>But then, Trump has <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/donald-trumpp-is-breaking-every-rule-of-political-branding">never been one</a> for following rules anyway.</p><p><span style="font-size:13.3333px;line-height:normal">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.</span></p></div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt"><div><span style="font-size:13.3333px">-Greek proverb</span></div><div><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understanding!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
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