English Has Become Easier To Read (worksinprogress.news)
- Reference: 0180412119
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/17/1849246/english-has-become-easier-to-read
- Source link: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/english-prose-has-become-much-easier
Oliver argues that much of what modern datasets measure as declining sentence length is actually just changing punctuation habits. Writers now use periods where earlier generations used colons and semicolons. One dataset shows semicolon usage dropped from one every 90 words in 1781 to one every 390 words today. The cognitive complexity of a paragraph often remains the same regardless of how it's punctuated. Even wildly popular modern books don't follow the "short sentences equal readable" formula. Oliver points to Onyx Storm, the 2025 fantasy novel that has sold tens of millions of copies, which opens with sentences of 24 and 30 words. The 30-word sentence has a subordinate clause twice as long as its main clause. The book reads easily not because sentences are short but because the language is plain and the syntax is logical.
[1] https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/english-prose-has-become-much-easier
FTFY (Score:3)
The conventional wisdom that English prose [became] easier to read because sentences [became] shorter is wrong,
Re: (Score:2)
It done gotten more short-like
Re: FTFY (Score:2)
Innit bruv.
Reading is for chumps (Score:2)
Illiteracy is IN.
Just talk to ChatGpt. And listen to the answer. Reading is hard, right kids?
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, don't bother with ChatGPT... just talk to the current US administration.
Re: (Score:2)
Reading is for NERDS
TL;DR (Score:1)
You not gotten dumber.
Victorians? (Score:2)
I'm not sure the victorians could be accused of having used a plain style. Their prose was often more contorted with more unnecessary padding words than shakespear .
Re: (Score:2)
> the 26 Letters of the English language make reading easier than trying to decipher characters from languages that have hundreds of symbols like Chinese
If your only goal is pronouncing it, sure. But if you already have to learn the word's meaning, the pronunciation is going to be paired with that anyway.
The hundreds of symbols in Chinese are essentially equivalent to prefixes and suffixes from Greek or Latin. They can be combined semantically. But the pronunciation is much more difficult. Korean or Japanese borrow a lot from Japanese but have fewer phonemes. Korean's writing system is arguably simpler than the Latin alphabet because it follows a patte
The Three Little Pigs, in old English (Score:2)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxoUUbMii7Q
Re: (Score:1)
Funny, but a few centuries after Chaucer. The punch line at the end is worth the wait.
Not surprised about semicolons (Score:2)
I rarely use semicolons; decades ago my teachers always used a red pen to replace them with a period and capitalize the next word. I eventually just gave up and complied with their grammar regime.
Re: Not surprised about semicolons (Score:2)
Teachers these days use green pen because itâ(TM)s less confrontational. Youâ(TM)re clearly traumatised! No idea what their problem was, but semicolons are very useful.
Re: Not surprised about semicolons (Score:2)
As your post (and possibly mine) shows, we are using systems that donâ(TM)t even support transmission of punctuation. No wonder usage is decreasing.
Re: (Score:2)
Semicolons are the bastard child of commas. Their use is limited and if you don't use them correctly the reader is confused because the phrasing is off.
Unless you know what you're doing, use a comma or a period or better yet, rewrite so you don't get into the position of needing a semicolon.
Re: (Score:2)
I work with Germans, believe me, you will get another understanding of commas (and capital letters). Point is, you need to know what you're doing with any punctuation. There are plenty of situations where a semicolon is more appropriate than a full-stop.
Long sentences (Score:4, Informative)
I can remember reading [1]Robinson Crusoe [wikipedia.org] (1719) back in my youth, and thinking to myself "dang, these are really freaking long sentences." Made my tween head spin. Example:
> After I had solaced my mind with the comfortable part of my condition, I began to look round me, to see what kind of place I was in, and what was next to be done; and I soon found my comforts abate, and that in a word I had a dreadful deliverance; for I was wet, had no clothes to shift me, nor any thing either to eat or drink to comfort me; neither did I see any prospect before me, but that of perishing with hunger, or being devoured by wild beasts; and that which was particularly afflicting to me, was, that I had no weapon either to hunt and kill any creature for my sustenance, or to defend myself against any other creature that might desire to kill me for theirs; in a word, I had nothing about me but a knife, a tobacco pipe, and a little tobacco in a box; this was all my provision, and this threw me into terrible agonies of mind, that for a while I ran about like a madman.
That is ONE sentence.
But this kind of many-claused style is hardly new. Here is the first sentence from the Gospel of Luke:
> Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us,a just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.
Apparently this kind of structure was not uncommon in Greek of the time.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robinson_Crusoe&oldid=1328057618
Re:Long sentences (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are proof that the comma and semicolon actually have a place. Those are not bad to read since there are places to pause.
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The difference in writing to a serial bus vs a parallel bus.
I would have guessed it was due to ESL speakers (Score:2)
Perhaps it's my software engineering bubble, but I have to simplify my communication style for people who speak English as a second language. So many speak English as a second language. I would have guessed that would discourage odd phrasing. Additionally, texting on a phone is painful, so one would assume that would encourage simplification across all languages. I write 10x as often as I speak...to coworkers, extended family, etc. Even with my wife, I am texting her as many sentences as we say to each
This tracks. (Score:2)
Forasmuch as we're prone to the use of univerbations, contractions, and the occasional metaphor- the utility of our linguistic vehicles and our love of philology is sure to atrophy for our Bonafede learned practitioners, as well as our amateurs and abecedarians. We all find ourselves using shorter and shorter-handed prose in our professional and personal correspondences as a matter of course. Time is money after all. We rarely consider what society as a whole gives up in our linguistic evolutions and trans
My bias as a C programmer (Score:4, Informative)
This article has motivated me to change up my punctuation preferences; you see: we hardly ever use the noble semi-colon; a punctuation that adds a wonderful dramatic pause; while connecting each sentences into a thought-stream; and only once the complete train of thought has been completed; shall we finally terminate with the ignoble full stop.
well not sure I agree with this (Score:1)
ever tried to make it through Jane Austin or Naked Lunch?
Changing punctuation habits *do* make it easier (Score:2)
The author argues that shorter sentences are just the result of using periods where semicolons or colons used to be used.
> Oliver argues that much of what modern datasets measure as declining sentence length is actually just changing punctuation habits. Writers now use periods where earlier generations used colons and semicolons.
But I'd argue that these long sentences, made up of clauses joined by colons or semicolons--*are* harder to read. Using periods instead, forces the author to write sentences that are shorter and more self-contained.
It's like the old quote that "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." Writing thoughts concisely does take more effort, but it results in text that is easie
How about no punctuation? (Score:5, Funny)
I occasionally see posts here where the poster doesn't use even periods It makes it difficult to break the string of words into meaningful quanta So the mind has a difficult time "chewing" the text piecewise How do you like my explanation I'm sure it's clear to everyone yes
Re: How about no punctuation? (Score:1)
would be better without capitalisation or quotation marks and maybe add some phonetic spellings into the mix and then get jamming on the auto suggestion and the word is this was a good day and a good night of fun with my family i hope everyone had fun today too i hope everyone had an this was a good day and a good night of fun with my family i hope everyone has an this was a good idea and a good thing i will try this next year as i am very excited about this new product i have made in my life i am excited a
Re: (Score:2)
"You remind me..."
Sure, "me" LOL. As if we haven't seen these same petty insults countless times before.
Re: How about no punctuation? (Score:2)
What youâ(TM)re missing is monospaced text and fixed line lengths that are longer than the mobile view by a few words on their own line and annoyingly too short for a computer display. The holy warriors of the Usenet will then be very happy.
Re: How about no punctuation? (Score:2)
[1]https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~be... [upenn.edu]
[1] https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/spelling-reform.html
Re: (Score:3)
[1]Mark Twain [guidetogrammar.org] suggested an improvement to English language years before Chrysler...
[1] https://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/twain.htm
Re: (Score:2)
You deleted the punctuation but to do it right you need to let all the ideas flow together in a run on stream of consciousness so there is no way to split the ideas apart even when reading it three times as you try to make sense of a meandering paragraph long sentence which is grammatically valid aside from some missing commas to give you a clue where the individual chunks of information are in the unorganized soup of thoughts which might even have a rational point and a period at the end.
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It sounds like it through a German translator was put.
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That reminds me when I interviewed for a start-up that wanted to make any app that could do real-time translation of any language. And suggested that with noise cancelling headphones you wouldn't even notice the person spoke a different language.
And I'm sitting in their interview pitch thinking: that's now how German to English translation works. You often need to get pretty close to the end of the German sentence before you can even begin the English translation.
Re: (Score:2)
that you bothered to use uppercase characters in your post indicates you are far more civilized than your typical slashdotter