A new study reportedly shows that, despite popular belief, women are not using up the world’s supply of words at a faster rate than men. It just seems that way.

The common misconception that women are far more talkative than men is simply one of those urban legends that refuses to die, researchers claim. For years, the prevailing wisdom had been that women used about 20,000 words daily, while men used roughly 7,000. But the team that conducted the recent study could find no research supporting that contention.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Science, determined that women utter 16,215 words in the course of a day on average, while men make do with a mere 15,699. The difference, 546 words, is considered statistically insignificant.

The research was conducted by placing microphones on nearly 400 college students for periods ranging from two to 10 days, sampling their conversations and calculating how many words they used in a typical day. The project, conducted in the United States and Mexico, took six years to complete.

The least talkative of the entire lot was a male who got through his day with the aid of only 500 presumably very well-chosen words. That compares with the more than 45,000 words that the group’s motor mouth – another male capable of talking the socks off the competition – unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.

Most any newspaper reporter of experience has interviewed both types and has likely discovered early on in the process that, like the late great vaudevillian W.C. Fields, he’d really rather be in Philadelphia. Getting much beyond a “yup” or a “nope” out of a taciturn Down Easter in response to a brilliantly well-phrased question can be as tedious as wrestling an alligator for the bar bill.

When the reporter gets back to his desk and tries to make some sense out of the interview he often finds that he doesn’t have a whole lot to work with. When I see a television reporter working the street live, asking Mr. 500-Word Man a question and attempting to coax him into a response of more than one word for the enlightenment of the masses, I empathize. Rotsa ruck, Big Guy. Better you than me.

The interview with the verbose 45,000-words-per-day Uncle Blabby, on the other hand, presents the opposite dilemma, although it produces roughly the same result. Sit down to write up that baby for the morning newspaper and you can become so bogged down in your 6 pounds of notes that the story you crank out is likely to read like one of those lethal Department of Education handouts extolling the virtues of properly conducted ongoing review mechanisms.

Researchers were concerned with only the quantity of speech spewed forth daily by participants, and did not attempt to assess the quality of that speech, which is perhaps just as well. Nor did it estimate how many times the college students used the words “like,” or “ya know,” or “I mean,” although you may feel free to presume that the number was a substantial percentage of the total.

A related newspaper story concerned the periodic updating of the Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary. The latest edition of that publication, which will go on sale this fall, includes about a hundred new words that have crept into the popular culture.

There are words such as “ginormous,” which is a combination of “gigantic” and “enormous” that has been used in newspaper and magazine articles since 2000 by people not easily embarrassed. The list also includes “crunk,” a style of Southern rap music, and the abbreviated “IED,” shorthand for the improvised explosive devices so common in the war in Iraq.

The dictionary’s editors believe that the 100 latest words have staying power and will stick around in our vocabulary. I suppose some of them might, but I doubt they will catch on here like some of the entries in “How To Talk Yankee,” the dictionary of Maine terms the late Gerald Lewis from down Boothbay Harbor way compiled nearly 30 years ago (North Country Press).

Lewis defined words such as “tunk,” a noun or verb meaning “a light blow;” and “whale,” a verb meaning “to strike vigorously.” He illustrated their usage: “You’ve got to tunk that nut to get it started.” And, “Tunk it? What I’d like to do is whale it with a top maul. I’ve been tryin’ to git this magneto off for an hour…”

The Merriam-Webster folks do a decent job of defining their words. But when Lewis muckled on to a definition there was no misunderstanding. We caught his drift, slicker’n a smelt.

BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may contact him via e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.