People of class drink alcohol

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'll bring it up when I see him on Sunday; maybe he can refer me to some books or something supporting it.

[Triple Zero]

Maybe it's as simple as people with better vocabularies being more likely to have money to spend on alcohol?

Possibly. Another factor is that people in college drink a lot more.

What I think is most puzzling, even, is not that the correlation is so strong and monotone-increasing, but seemingly linear!

A few quick googles don't tell me really what the WORDSUM test actually is, except that everybody quotes it as "correlating 0.8 with IQ", someone mentioned it's a quickie IQ test consisting of 10 multiple choice vocabulary questions. It's not even on Wikipedia. I just got back from Ju-jitsu so my [mental] google-fu is a bit weak right now.

Mr. Language was talking about the birth of written language last night; he thinks there is a strong correlation between use of mind-altering substances and humans becoming literate.

He might just be a filthy hippie, but I'm not the linguistics professor.

Terrence McKenna wrote a book Food of the Gods which is about hallucinogenic mushrooms, that supposedly triggered/activated/helped develop our language instincts. Though IIRC that was about language, not literacy.

I'm not aware of any actual evidence for this theory though, except McKenna's writings. Though maybe McKenna cites some stuff, I never read the book. I had the PDF on my old HD, so I guess it's easy to find on the torrents.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For all I know, this theory of his is based on his own research. I really have no idea, at all. He's Nerdly McNerdington.

[Nast]

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, they talk about the different kinds of language, from pictograms to alphanumeric, and the relative ages and paths of each style of language.  

Although a good case is made for language starting out as a method of accounting/bookkeeping, there had to be a point where things got abstracted, where a headspace was required that combined two previously unrelated things in a meta sort of way.  

It's not hard to imagine psychotropics having some hand in this.  But like I said, I'm not sure if there's any concrete proof of this.

But as far as we know, written language has been invented independently four times throughout history, so it's completely possible that different cultures came to develop it through different means.

[Requia ☣]

A few quick googles don't tell me really what the WORDSUM test actually is, except that everybody quotes it as "correlating 0.8 with IQ", someone mentioned it's a quickie IQ test consisting of 10 multiple choice vocabulary questions.

This seems to be correct from a paper I dug up about WORDSUM.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I must add to this electronic message board a posting thus: what a splendiferous happenstance my most keenly astute Dutchman, for at this very interval I am altogether inebriated from no less than a pair of quaffs off of my quite parlous alcoholic beverage and upon tempestuous rumination whether the original inquiry's concatenation (to which I now fully am experiencing its haecceity) was but a spatchcock of ultracrepidation that only tregetour would vilipend.

[Faust]

This seems entirely possible, however the control group of wasted drunks I know who aren't linguistically gripping or any other gripping at all makes me sceptical.

[Cramulus]

Trip beat me to mentioning McKenna's book, Food of the Gods. He makes some interesting and well researched conjecture about the diets of prehistoric humans, but sadly the book's science gets a little overshadowed by his main thesis, which basically talks about how psychotropic drugs are the utopian key to moving us away from alcohol and sugar based "Dominator Culture" (aka patriarchy).


As for the correlation between vocabulary size and drinking -- there are an astounding number of literary figures who have been alcoholics. Cliff Pickover has a few chapters about this in A Beginner's Guide to Immortality, in which he points out that people of unusual intelligence also tend to have some very abnormal traits or behaviors. Genius is a double-edged blade - it may make you excellent at something, but it also puts you far outside the statistical norm, into a very lonely place.

[Adios]

Educated people do NOT drink more than anyone else.

See NASCAR please.

[Requia ☣]

Educated people do NOT drink more than anyone else.

See NASCAR please.

This is about drinking at all, not how much they drink.

[LMNO]

Educated people do NOT drink more than anyone else.

See NASCAR please.

This is about drinking at all, not how much they drink.

Garbled syntax - he's positing that a larger number of uneducated people (broadly classified as NASCAR fans, perhaps unfairly) drink alcohol than the number of educated people.




As far as I'm concerned, the amount of people who drink can be considered a constant; however, educated people are probably more pompous about it, and therefore talk about drinking more.

[Doktor Howl]

Educated people do NOT drink more than anyone else.

See NASCAR please.

This is about drinking at all, not how much they drink.

Garbled syntax - he's positing that a larger number of uneducated people (broadly classified as NASCAR fans, perhaps unfairly) drink alcohol than the number of educated people.




As far as I'm concerned, the amount of people who drink can be considered a constant; however, educated people are probably more pompous about it, and therefore talk about drinking more.

Correct.  Drinking beer that's been through a cow is as Nascar as bouncing your wife off the walls three times a week.

[Cramulus]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=72935&sectionid=3510210

A new study has found that higher intelligence scores at age 10 are associated with higher levels of alcohol intake during adulthood.

According to the study published in the American Journal of Public Health, girls with higher IQ levels are more likely to develop alcohol drinking problems in adulthood.

The study showed that every 15-point increase in childhood mental ability score is associated with 1.38 and 1.17 times increase in drinking problems among women and men, respectively.

Previous studies had linked heavy drinking with certain genes. Two genes protect individuals against heavy drinking, the absence of which places individuals at a greater risk of alcoholism.

[Doktor Howl]

Fortunately for me, I've always been a dumbass.   

Dok,
Doesn't drink.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Trip beat me to mentioning McKenna's book, Food of the Gods. He makes some interesting and well researched conjecture about the diets of prehistoric humans, but sadly the book's science gets a little overshadowed by his main thesis, which basically talks about how psychotropic drugs are the utopian key to moving us away from alcohol and sugar based "Dominator Culture" (aka patriarchy).


As for the correlation between vocabulary size and drinking -- there are an astounding number of literary figures who have been alcoholics. Cliff Pickover has a few chapters about this in A Beginner's Guide to Immortality, in which he points out that people of unusual intelligence also tend to have some very abnormal traits or behaviors. Genius is a double-edged blade - it may make you excellent at something, but it also puts you far outside the statistical norm, into a very lonely place.

This is another thing Mr. Language and I were discussing the other night; our personal correlations between drinking and writing. Both of us find that we are better and more prolific writers when we drink.

My social circle is mostly people of very high intelligence (I have no idea what their IQ scores are, I'm just basing this on their educational, career, and creative accomplishments... and of course, their vocabularies and ability to communicate), and I have often marveled somewhat at what a bunch of unabashed drunks they are, overall. It's interesting that this has been independently statistically observed, though I would hesitate to offer any theories on why it is. I bet Mr. Language will, though.