Word Count

I'll admit that I didn't fully read this article on the average number of words spoken in a day. Mostly, I just wanted a count. Around 6,000 for a man, 8,000 for a woman. Fair enough.

Might these be adjusted for all communication? I can tell you that I average far, far less than 6,000 words spoken. Today, I talked to a few people at work for about five minutes each. Let's say I spoke a total of 2,000 words, a good overestimate. As my average conversation involves much more listening than speaking, 900 words is not out of the question on the day. Figure one third of my words were "well," "poop," and "candy," and there is so little actual knowledge conveyed by what I say.

However, if you throw in instant messaging and the occasional email, I probably exceed 5 digits worth of words. Include Writ and other leisurely writing, and I could be up to 15,000 words a day. Tack on the constant inner monologue and narration, and, good gravy, I'm a wordy bastard.

I've had the pleasure to make acquaintance with those that occupy the opposite end of the spectrum. Would not be surprised if they hit fifty thousand words in a day. Eight-six thousand, four hundred seconds in a day. Take out eight hours for sleep, and that's fifty-seven thousand, six hundred seconds. These people average .87 words a second. In contrast, if I speak 2,000, I average .04 words a second.

I suppose the meaningful measure is how much information was actually conveyed per word. Damned if I'm going to create a metric on this, but I'm sure that, because of the higher frequency of words, the gabbers convey more overall, but they probably also have more filler. Of course, there's always a possibility that entirely no meaningful information is conveyed.