The 24 Words That Are Most Known To Only Men Or Women

Mark Brysbaert of the Center for Reading Research conducted a study of the English words most commonly understood specifically be either men or women. Here are the words that men know well that women don't:

• codec (88, 48)
• solenoid (87, 54)
• golem (89, 56)
• mach (93, 63)
• humvee (88, 58)
• claymore (87, 58)
• scimitar (86, 58)
• kevlar (93, 65)
• paladin (93, 66)
• bolshevism (85, 60)
• biped (86, 61)
• dreadnought (90, 66)

And here are the words that women recognize, but men generally don't:

• taffeta (48, 87)
• tresses (61, 93)
• bottlebrush (58, 89)
• flouncy (55, 86)
• mascarpone (60, 90)
• decoupage (56, 86)
• progesterone (63, 92)
• wisteria (61, 89)
• taupe (66, 93)
• flouncing (67, 94)
• peony (70, 96)
• bodice (71, 96)

The assessment examined 500,000 people using a computer-based vocabulary test:

In the online test, 100 letter sequences — which may or may not be real English words —  flash across the taker's screen. Pressing the "f" or "j" keys, respectively, will indicate whether the participant knows, but not necessarily understands, a specific word. The test strongly penalizing for marking you know a word that doesn't exist. 

I'm a bit skeptical. How could any reasonably functional adult not know what a claymore is? Don't tell me that it's not taught in even the most dysfunctional schools.