Top-Earning Musicians Also Have Top Grammar, In Many Cases

Beyoncé is having a huge year, even by her lofty standards. In February she wowed the world with a show-stopping Super Bowl performance and in July launched her Mrs. Carter World Tour. Over the past 12 months, she raked in $53 million.

“I’m never satisfied,” she told FORBES four years ago. “I’ve never met anyone that works harder than me in my industry.”

Beyoncé can add another superlative to her résumé: Among music’s biggest stars, she’s also the best at spelling and grammar. That’s the finding ofGrammarly, a writing enhancement startup that recently completed a study of the literal habits of the 100 most-followed musicians on Twitter.

Beyoncé was the closest to perfection, with a mere 2.1 mistakes, followed by Coldplay at 2.8 mistakes. The worst: DJ Pauly D at 55.6 mistakes and Snoop Dogg at 35.8. Beyoncé and Coldplay earned a combined $117 million according to our latest estimates; Pauly D and Snoop Dogg combined for $19.5 million.

So does good grammar translate to high earnings? The relationship is eerily concurrent, but it’s more likely correlation than causation. Proving a link would be difficult, and Grammarly’s data set is limited. Adding to the murk: it’s often unclear which tweets are written by the artists themselves and which are penned by publicists.

But at a casual glance, many of music’s top earners also have the best grammar. Aside from Beyoncé and Coldplay, other strong spellers include Ludacris (5.4 mistakes per 100 words), who made $80 million over the past six years, and One Direction (3.5 mistakes); the U.K. boy band pulled in more than $50 million over the past two years.

There are exceptions, of course—namely, Justin Bieber, who earned $58 million last year. The Canadian crooner made 29.5 mistakes per 100 words, which have been broadcast to over 40 million followers on Twitter and tens of millions more across other social networks. They don’t seem to mind the miscues.

“The fans want the connection,” Bieber explained to FORBES last year. “They want to see you Instagramming at a coffee shop in the morning.”

Judging by his spelling record on Twitter, perhaps Bieber ought to stick to Instagram.

Grammarly’s proofreaders combed through each artist’s most recent 25 tweets and found the average musician makes about 15 writing errors per 100 words.