I found this thing online called the Gender Genie that purports to be able to tell by the words used in a piece of writing what gender the author is. I entered in a piece of my novel and then a piece of my blog (the entry about the tie). Both times the Genie read me as male, which I find interesting. It bases its assessment on words that you wouldn't think would be gender indicators, such as should, we, with, not (female) and the, below, at, and it (male).
I'm going to be cutting and pasting random things in there for the ten minutes or so, trying to figure out if it's just a bunch of hooey or if I really have a "masculine" style.
I have no pictures today. I'm working on a dress, but Brandon took the digital camera with him in the truck.
*** AN UPDATE ***
After fiddling with the Gender Genie awhile, I think it more or less consistently identifies certain blog authors as male or female, but it has very little do do with the actual gender of the author. Some females are consistently predicted as male, and some male authors are consistently predicted as female, and a slight majority of people's gender is predicted correctly and consistently.
Showing posts with label word geek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label word geek. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Word Geek Fun
My mom emailed me a link to this site which not only helps you improve your vocabulary, but also helps alleviate world hunger.
Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program for every word you correctly define on their word quiz.
The cool thing (to me, because I am a geek) about this word quiz thing is that it adjusts to your vocabulary level, giving you progressively harder and more obscure words. There are a total of 55 levels, and the highest I have gotten is to 51. And that mostly because it is multiple choice, and I made some good guesses.
Some of these words are hard to work into conversation, though. I might could work in "lagniappe" (small gift) for example "I have a butterfly pocket mirror to give as a lagniappe to the first person who buys a skirt from me", but then there are words like "catoptric" which is apparently, "mirror-related". I'm having a hard time coming up with a situation in which that would be useful. "I have a catoptric langiappe for the first person who buys a skirt from me"? Or words that could be used, but you would sound pretentious - "lanuginous" instead of "downy", "apiculate" instead of "pointy". I'm guessing a lot of them are actually words that would be used in a scientific context. My spell-checker, by the way, is highlighting all of these. But some are just fun - "katzenjammer", for example, which if I remember right, means "hangover", although it sounds to me like it should mean the night that led up to the hangover.
Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program for every word you correctly define on their word quiz.
The cool thing (to me, because I am a geek) about this word quiz thing is that it adjusts to your vocabulary level, giving you progressively harder and more obscure words. There are a total of 55 levels, and the highest I have gotten is to 51. And that mostly because it is multiple choice, and I made some good guesses.
Some of these words are hard to work into conversation, though. I might could work in "lagniappe" (small gift) for example "I have a butterfly pocket mirror to give as a lagniappe to the first person who buys a skirt from me", but then there are words like "catoptric" which is apparently, "mirror-related". I'm having a hard time coming up with a situation in which that would be useful. "I have a catoptric langiappe for the first person who buys a skirt from me"? Or words that could be used, but you would sound pretentious - "lanuginous" instead of "downy", "apiculate" instead of "pointy". I'm guessing a lot of them are actually words that would be used in a scientific context. My spell-checker, by the way, is highlighting all of these. But some are just fun - "katzenjammer", for example, which if I remember right, means "hangover", although it sounds to me like it should mean the night that led up to the hangover.
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