16,000 words per day?

Steve Chapman channels his inner Gary Cooper and painfully puts forward a few words on the 16,000 words per day issue:

This research torpedoes the popular assumption that incessant yakking is correlated with X chromosomes. Or as Pennebaker told USA Today, with an admirable economy of words, "It's been a common belief, but it just didn't fit." The evidence is convincing enough that neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, whose book "The Female Brain" cited claims that women speak at triple the rate of men, says those now "can be relegated to the category of myth."

All I can say is that if the average male is putting out 16,000 words every day, then I'm living in a verbal desert. Some guys I haven't met must be gushing verbiage like Old Faithful to make up for the ones I know, many of whom might easily be mistaken for victims of lockjaw.

That is not a description I would apply to many women of my acquaintance. The editorial board on which I serve used to be nearly all-male, but now has a female majority. I can describe the difference in two words: Longer meetings.

I have to admit that I also found the research to be less than 100% convincing, but perhaps it's just my old-fashioned, patriarchal, etc., etc. views of the world causing me to hold such an odd opinion. Chapman finishes off the article with some pithy words of wisdom:

But now I learn that the guys I know are wholly unrepresentative. Apparently for every one of us, there is some long-winded politician, preacher, auctioneer or "Hardball" guest who talks more in his sleep than we do fully awake. I hope not to meet any of them in this life. But if I do, I'll know what to say: Shut up.