Consuming Words

According to a new report, the average American consumes 34 gigabytes and 100,000 words over the course of about 12 hours every day. Nearly half of that time is spent watching television; about a quarter on the computer; and the rest on radio, print media, telephones, computer games, recorded music, movies and other sources. Maybe those average Americans need to go on a word diet. Many of those words are superfluous. (If you consider the inanity of most television shows, radio programs...