Re: English Only Understood by Female English Speakers?

David Peterson wrote:


>    I'd heard this awhile back, and then forgot about it, but then heard it
>again, and now I'm intrigued.  Apparently there's this lesson or theory in
>psychology about how women and men understand language, and to accompany
this
>is a paragraph which, when passed out to an audience, is perfectly
>intelligible to women, but completely incomprehensible to men.  Is this
true?
> If so, why?  What does Chomsky have to say about this?  ;)  (Just
kidding.)
>And (most importantly) does anyone have a link to a place where I can find
>this mystery text?
>
Semi-smartass reply:  Isn't Robin Lakoff at UCBerk? Go ask her......(OT I
always found Robin a lot more interesting than her husband)
Serious answer:  Haven't heard about that directly.  But the linguist
Deborah Tannen (I think it is) has written a couple  books on how men and
women speak and, often, fail to communicate. It might be discussed there, if
in fact it exists.