A just-released survey that compares and contrasts the grammatical skills of Major League Baseball fans placed the New York Yankees’ faithful in the penultimate position among the 30 MLB teams.
Grammarly examined 3,000 comments posted to each MLB team’s blog to determine grammar and spelling mistakes, sentence structure and punctuation errors in each comment. They then calculated the average number of errors per 100 words.
As it turns out, Yankee fans committed more errors than W., Cheney and Rumsfeld did in deciding Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Miami Marlins’ fans topped Grammarly’s list, possessing the most would-be Hemingway, Dickens and Roth wanna-be’s in the Bigs.
Marlins’ fans averaged only 1.39 mistakes per 100 words (or, MPW, if you prefer). I’ll bet that’s far fewer mulligans than the Del Boca Vista octogenarians commit in their daily golf outings before they head to the ballpark.
Turning to the dark side, St. Louis Cardinals’ fans finished dead last with 2.2 MPW’s. Such abuse of the English language may explain why St. Louis fans routinely referred to the great Mets teams of the late 1980’s as “pond scum”.
I never quite understood what pond scum was, or why the term itself was derogatory but, based upon the survey findings, I’ll bet the Cardinals’ fans didn’t either.
So, how did my fellow Metropolitans’ fans fare? Let’s just say their writing skills eerily echoed the team’s offensive performance this season: They finished 23rd.
And, what of the cutting-edge technology hubs? Well, Seattle Mariners’ fans finished a respectable 11th.
But, Giants and A’s fans finished 14th and 21st, respectively (suggesting that perhaps the Silicon Valley doesn’t attract the best and brightest after all). Or, maybe Google, Apple and Yahoo employees work such long hours that they simply don’t have the time, or energy, to even contemplate posting their comments on the team websites.
he baseball fan results are fascinating to be sure. But, frankly I’d be much more interested in see Grammarly compare the writing skills of Trump and Clinton supporters.
Based upon The Donald’s daily misspellings, horrific sentence structure and overall abuse of the English language in his Tweets, I have to believe his followers are, well, following his lead.
Trump/Pence may be intent on making America great again, but how can they do so when the top guy on the ticket terrorizes the English language?
Grammarly: Your country needs you.
Do a quick analysis, and let us know how wide a gulf exists between the presidential candidates’ respective supporters. I’m guessing it would rival the Grand Canyon.
But, hey, I’m a Mets fan; so what do I know?
As a Mets fan, this does not surprise me…
I agree with Adam. It’s a question of sample size. The Miami Marlins barely have any fans in their own city. So if you’re trolling the web to find their fans’ posts, it won’t take too long. The Yankees and Cardinals meanwhile have national appeal. Look at the other teams at the bottom of the list, such as the Atlanta Braves, the self-proclaimed “America’s team” of the 90’s and the LA teams, which are in a major market. I am confused by the Cubs being in 5th place. They are a nationally beloved team, so that’s an anomaly to me. The premise is that because the Yankees have so many fans, there is a broader universe of posts online to review, and so it follows, a greater chance of grammar errors. BTW why couldn’t Melania’s speechwriters run her RNC monologue through Grammarly real quick??
Love and agree with everything you said about The Donald (obviously, there can only be one Donald) and his terror attack on the English language, but something looks terribly off about they Yankees fans’ score. In one year, Yankee fans went from 9th to 29th?? I can only chalk that up to the popularity of the Yankees nation wide! We have the largest fan base coast to coast, and, as the article states, their sample size was twenty times larger. Broader geographical and diverse sample of Yankee fans oozed out more errors. Also, the popularity of the Cardinals reaches well outside the St. Louis area. From Indiana to Arkansas, you can find Cardinals fans.
Like Matt P. said, there must be a connection.
So, you’re suggesting the more successful the team, the less literate the fans? If that were true, the old Polo Grounds would have been filled to the rafters in 1962 with Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and Peabody Award recipients all chanting, “Let’s Go Mets!”
As a Yankees’ fan, I propose that were too busy being sucessful to go back and proofreed our commetns. Mickey Mantle was definately known for his dangling modifier.
That will happen when you’re team has played in nearly 40%(!!) of all World Series ever playd, and won 27 of them. Similar for the Cardinalz, the second-most succesful team in baseball.
There must be a conection, yes?