The idea that women use nearly three times as many words a day as men has taken on the status of an urban legend. An urban legend that isn’t true, say researchers. “The researchers placed microphones on 396 college students for periods ranging from two to 10 days, sampled their conversations and calculated how many words they used in the course of a day. The score: Women, 16,215. Men, 15,669. The difference: 546 words: Not statistically significant.”