WASHINGTON — Nine in 10 Americans are angry about a word they cannot define, according to a study released Monday by the Center for Measured Outcomes, which found that anger about the word has risen 41.2 percent since spring while public understanding of it has held steady at what researchers characterized as “almost none.”
The study surveyed 4,018 adults, who were shown the word on an index card and asked to rate their anger about it on a scale of 1 to 10, then to define it. The average anger score was 8.7. Of the respondents, 91.3 percent could not provide a definition, and 6.2 percent of the remainder defined it as “you know exactly what it means.”
“The anger is very well developed. It’s articulate, it’s consistent, it holds up over time,” said Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center. “It’s the definition that’s lagging.”
The Center has declined to publish the word itself, citing preliminary data showing that printing it produces an average 2.3-point increase in anger among people who have not yet seen it. In a follow-up study, researchers showed a second group of 1,000 adults a blank index card and told them it contained the word. Of that group, 88.4 percent became angry, and 11.9 percent of those correctly defined the word, a higher rate than among respondents who had actually seen it. A control group that was shown no card and was not told about the study was found to be 76 percent angry about the word by the time researchers arrived to administer it. Several had made signs.
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, said a definition would only “muddy” the word.
“Once you define a word, you’re stuck with what it means,” Brickhouse said by phone from a hardware store. “People are angry about what it means to them, which changes depending on what they’re angry about that day. That’s what makes it such a good word. It’s just common sense.”
The study found that anger about the word was evenly distributed across age, income, and region, with one exception: respondents who said they had looked the word up were 34.7 percent angrier than those who had not, and 100 percent angrier at the dictionary.
The study has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, though researchers noted that respondents were also angry about the margin of error, which 94.0 percent of them could not define.
According to the Center, the original index card containing the word has not been seen since March, when a laboratory assistant became angry about it and could not explain why. A replacement card was produced from memory by three staff members, who each wrote down a different word and are now angry about all of them.
Teller said the Center has applied for $4.2 million in additional funding to determine what the word means, a figure 9 in 10 Americans are reportedly angry about.