Well, when you’re sitting next to a chatty group of women at a restaurant, it may seem like it it’s true, but it’s not! Here are the hard facts, courtesy of Psychology Today:

Several sources claim that women use many more words per day than men and some of them cite unsubstantiated statistics, including “women use about 7,000 words a day, compared to only 2,000 for men.” According to Mark Liberman, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, that’s a complete fabrication. He points out that no reputable study has ever measured the widely-repeated statistics that women talk three times more than men.

To back up his statement, Dr. Liberman studied almost 6,000 taped conversations between two people. Twosomes that consisted of only women, only men, and couples, ranging from teenagers to adults in their 80s. Participants were assigned a “talking partner” at random, and asked to talk for up to 10 minutes on one of 40 topics. Like, “What do you think is the most important thing to look for in a life partner?" Or "Do you think you’d commit perjury for a close friend or family member?"

The result? On average, the men used 6% more words than the women did. In 55% of the conversations, the male participants talked more than the females did. In single-sex conversations, two guys exchanged about 3.2 percent more words than two gals talking to each other did. Bottom line: the men talk more!

So, why does the rumor persist that women are chattier than men? Deborah Cameron is a professor of language and communication at Oxford University and she says it’s because of stereotypes perpetuated in books and movies.