12 english words known by men but not by women (and vice versa) | Hacker News Reader

12 english words known by men but not by women (and vice versa)

zipf.ugent.be

16 pointspavelrub10 comments

It's hard for me to believe that 88% of a "random" sample of men know what "codec" is. Perhaps this vocabulary test was given mainly to people in Flanders. If so, I'm quite impressed with their general knowledge, especially of English words. I'd bet that no more than 8.8% of "random" males in the USA would know what "codec" is.

The article says it's based on "the first 500K tests completed" of http://vocabulary.ugent.be/wordtest/start

Then the sample is probably taken from internet dwellers who are interested in seeing how good their vocabulary is. I wonder if that's also why Paladin is so high up on that list.

Ha ha ha! I did know all of the male words, thanks to AD&D and the History channel. Meanwhile, on the feminine side I was shocked to be confronted by 7 out of 12 words, that I would be hard-pressed to use correctly in a sentence.

But seriously, are "flouncy" and "flouncing" substantialy distinct enough to be counted twice? I'm ashamed to ask, but I have to, since I really can't come up with a serious definition for either.

Interesting I wouldn't have counted them twice, as my instinct is that we're talking about an adjective and an adverb - BUT - flouncing is also a noun that is the material that is used to make a dress flouncy.

Sewing definitely has at least as many technical terms as comp-sci.

What a horrible title. 71% of men knew "bodice", that's hardly "not known to men".

I'm not a native English speaker, and while I knew all the "men words", most of the "women words" are giving me trouble. However I knew what "taffeta" was thanks to MLP:FiM.

I clearly don't watch enough MLP, as I have no idea what taffeta is. I can kinda place most of the other female words.

I admit when reading the male words, I wondered how women could not know those words; although they're very computer and fantasy oriented and not everyday words for most people, they're not that obscure, are they? And then I read the female list and I understood my own limits.

I knew all of them. Should I be concerned about my gender? ;)

The page links to an interesting vocabulary test. I probably scored low because I said "no" to words I recognized but did not know the meaning of.

On the basis of your results, we estimate you know 76% of the English words. You said yes to 76% of the existing words. You said yes to 0% of the nonwords. This gives you a corrected score of 76% - 0% = 76%. This is a high level for a native speaker. [!]

I got a 61%. Still high for a native speaker, it says.

I am not a native speaker, though.

One thing that's weird. It says: You said yes to 0% of the nonwords.

That sounds good. Apparently I never claimed to know a word that doesn't exist. But when I click on the "Nonwords you responded YES to" link, there is a word there. "Seconds".

Again, I am not a native speaker but I do believe that "Seconds" is indeed a word...

This was fun, but I was surprised by:

scimitar, bolshevism, biped, bottlebrush, mascarpone, progesterone and bodice

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