Word Pirates, let me introduce you to Gender Guesser. It claims it can tell whether a man or a woman is writing a paragraph. See, maybe you didn’t know, but women and men write differently. Men use ACTION verbs and women write about their feelings. Thus, using a handy algorithm, it can predict what sex a person is based purely on their syntax.
I decided to give it a try. Gender Guesser says it needs 300 word to properly analyze someone’s sex. So I put in the following:
He looked around the room. There was a gun lying on the dresser. The bullet had been fired not too long ago, he thought. He could almost smell the gun powder. His penis twitched in his shorts. “Got to do something about that,” he thought.” But later, after I find that dame and find out what she knows.” Quickly he went to the closet door and flung it open. Nothing but a suit hanging on the hanger. “Dead end,” he thought.
“Now where can that dame be?” he thought. He went to the liquor cabinet and opened it. No beer. There were, however, small square bottles of absinthe. He eyed them suspiciously. “No,” he thought. “They probably cost $20-per-bottle, easily. And even though the patsy who rented this room would get charged…”
“No no no! Never mind my alcoholism! I have to find the dame. What was I doing? Oh yeah, looking for clues. Fine. Here are the clues: there is a gun. It fired. There is possibly a dead body somewhere.”
He turned and threw open the front door to the room. Outside, there was a hallway. He looked down it, waiting sternly for a new clue to materialize. He couldn’t see or hear anything of interest. He stalked out into the hallway, striding in his black coat. In his pocket, his own gun nestled comfortingly against his leg. He patted it. “Ol’ Nelly,” he thought.
As he rounded the corner, he stopped and looked around. He put his hand in his pocket and put his finger on the trigger, just in case something jumped out at him. For a moment, he held his breath. He thought he heard a woman whimpering pathetically somewhere. It was faint, but yes, but he could hear it.
“The dame!” he thought…
The result? Gender Guesser believes I am 82.14% male.
Just goes to show, these things are based on science and reason, not stereotypes and folderol. Boy, you really can’t fool the Internets…
~ Joy