Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The average reader of a tabloid paper has a limited vocabulary.
In plain terms
Tabloid readers know about 10000 words.
What can you take from it?
Consider how vocabulary shapes media access.

Where it applies

  • journalism
  • public policy
  • writing

Putting it to work

  • reading
  • learning
  • publishing

Questions to consider

  • Who decides what we read?
  • How does word count affect news?

Another view

Vocabulary size does not determine intelligence or depth of thought.

More from Alan Moore

  1. Don't leave home without your sword - your intellect.

    Permalink to quote #33
  2. If I write a crappy comic book, it doesn't cost the budget of an emergent Third World nation. When you've got these kinds of sums involved in creating another …

    Permalink to quote #35
  3. Can it be a coincidence that, say, in the Sun newspaper, the ideal of female beauty would seem to be the body - the overdeveloped body - of a nubile woman and,…

    Permalink to quote #32

Related quotes

  1. I can't help feeling wary when I hear anything said about the masses. First you take their faces from 'em by calling 'em the masses and then you accuse 'em of …

    J. B. PriestleyJ. B. Priestley quote #3
  2. Isn't it odd how parents grieve if their child spends six hours a day on the 'Net, but are delighted if those same hours are spent reading books?

    Nicholas NegroponteNicholas Negroponte quote #15
  3. How did Memogate get a 'gate'? How did Nipplegate get a 'gate'? We invaded a country with the wrong information, and Janet Jackson's tit got a 'gate'. Who give…

    Jon StewartJon Stewart quote #17