WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Grammar Minute: It's Voting Season. Grammar Matters.

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

A 2011 study found that political candidates' grammar may influence voter perception on their chances of reelection. Learn more on today's episode of Grammar Minute--and if you're curious, read the study at this link.

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we're saving the English language 60 seconds at a time. I'm Lauren Smith, and I recently came across a research paper that made an interesting claim. A political candidate's use of verb tense may have some bearing on whether people think they'll be elected. The subject of this paper from 2011 was the effect different verb tenses had on a voter's perception of whether a candidate would be put back in office. A candidate's past activities were described with perfective ED verbs, like served and worked. and imperfective ing verbs, like was serving and was working. Turns out that any activity described using imperfective verbs, whether negative or positive, had a greater influence on study participants' judgments than actions described with perfective verbs.

And there's today's plug for why grammar might be important. If you want to get elected, maybe you should talk about all the great things you were doing, not what you did. That's your Grammar Minute.