Women vs Men: Twice as many words, or the same?

There's new study that says that men and women use the same number of words during a day. But that doesn't mention if the words represent the same or new concepts. Here's the joke:

A husband looking through the paper came upon a study that said women use more words than men. Excited to prove to his wife that he had been right all along when he accused her of talking too much, he showed her the study results. It read "Men use about 15,000 words per day, but women use 30,000".

The wife thought for a while, then finally she said to her husband "It's because we have to repeat everything we say."

The husband said "What?"

Men speak just as many words per day -- about 15,669 -- vs. the 16,215 women do during a 17-hour day. That's according to research (subscription req'd) published today in the journal Science. The findings contradict widely reported, yet unsubstantiated claims that women speak up to 20,000 words per day vs. 7,000 uttered by men.

This was shared by the Church of the Customer blog.

My question is this: do you think that women use more words when they write? I would say yes! Women, or at least some, are more aware of the emotional context and therefore would  address more issues than just the facts when writing on a topic.

But this is my own perspective and may not represent the majority. What's your opinion?

Comments

[gail]

fascinating. I've always heard (and believed it as well) that men talk less than women. i learnt something today, so thanks.