Obama more "passive" than McCain

New York, Oct 19 (PTI) Barack Obama has surged ahead of his rival John McCain on another counter -- use of passive voice in debates and more words in sentences -- a linguistic analysis of speeches of the two leaders has revealed.

"The use of the passive voice is considered significant
in political speech because audiences generally respond better
to active voice, which they tend to view as more direct," the
Global Language Monitor (G.L.M.) has found.

In a linguistic analysis of the final Presidential Debate
between Obama and McCain, the G.L.M. found that in sharp
contrast to prior debates, Obama's use of the passive voice
doubled that of McCain.

On a grade-level basis, Obama came in at 9.3 with McCain
scoring grade level, while McCain came in at 7.4, a difference
of nearly two grade levels. Obama also managed 19 words per
sentence, as opposed to 15 words per sentence for McCain.

Using industry-standard tools and techniques, G.L.M.
ranked the candidates' speech on a number of levels from grade
reading level, the use of the passive voice, a reading ease
score, the number of words per sentence, the number of
characters per word, among others.

"Again, word choice and usage speaks volumes," said Paul
J.J. Payack, G.L.M.'s president and Chief Word Analyst. Obama
came in at a higher grade level than his previous efforts, but
McCain was somewhat easier to understand.

"Obama's significantly higher use of the passive voice
combined with his frequent use of the word "I" perhaps
indicated an impatience with his opponent last witnessed in
his debates with Hillary Clinton," Payack said.

Obama used the personal pronoun, "I" about 158 times in
the debate, while McCain used the word some 119 times.

Memorable phrases include more than a dozen references
to "Joe the Plumber," one Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio,
and John McCain's "I am not President Bush" retort. PTI