More Fun With Statistics: The Slut O Meter

“I am not a slut, though I thank the Gods I am foul.” –Audrey in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

As a fan of pointless statistical measures I would like to point you to the another such delightful measure of the Internet: The Slut O Meter.

It’s simple, ingenious, and of course uses Google. The equation that explains it is taken from the originating site and listed below. The gist of it is, it compares how many total entries on the entered item are blocked when Google’s SafeSearch is turned on. SafeSearch is mainly designed to keep your kids from accidentally getting porn and such when they are trying to find porn.



Of course the Slut-O-Meter does not stare deep into your heart and determine how skanky you actually are, but simply determines what percentage of sites on Google featuring your name have offensive content. So, it’s a lovely way of seeing the effective connotation weight of names, words, or concepts are.

So, naturally, I wanted to test some of my assumptions about certain names. I have always held the assumption that “stripper names” can be recognized for a few essential characteristics: one of these being the “i” replacing the “y” at the end of a woman’s name. I figured it would be reasonable that Staci would be sluttier than Stacy.

I was wrong. Here’s the breakdown:

Stacy: 8.52%
Staci: -2.87%
Kristy: 19.33%
Kristi: 9.05%
Misty: 19.23%
Misti: 18.75%
Mandy: 17.28%
Mandi -20.1%

So yeah, basically, apparently the “I” substitution doesn’t have the stripper connotation that I thought it did in the minds of the public at large. Anyway, for further discussion (and trying to figure out how you get a negative rating, which shouldn’t be possible) there’s the “About” section of the site proper, and there are a couple of posts on the Language Log about it.

Also, for the the record: Kellen Carpenter weighs in at a lovely 0% sluttiness.