CNN reports on fraud linguist's Obama speech analysis

According to Paul J.J. Payack, president of "Global Language Monitor," an Austin, Texas-based company that "analyzes and catalogs trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture," President Obama's Oval Office address Tuesday was far too professorial for his intended audience. Payack reveals his analysis of the speech in a report released Wednesday, and duly reported on by CNN. Payack, of course, is not a linguist. He is a professional self-promoter who provides ready-made bullshit "stories" about language to media outlets like CNN. He is a professional expert with no expertise. He is a fraud. CNN has been going to him for stories like this for years, of course. According to the actual linguists at Language Log: For starters, Payack is not a professional linguist–he often boasts of a Harvard degree, which turns out to be some coursework in comparative literature that he took through Harvard's extension program. This language expert cannot even correctly identify the passive voice.