In the 1880s, English professor L. A. Sherman found that the English sentence was getting shorter. In Elizabethan times...

>In the 1880s, English professor L. A. Sherman found that the English sentence was getting shorter. In Elizabethan times, the average sentence was 50 words long. In his own time, it was 23 words long.

And it's even shorter today. Why is this happening? Are we regressing in reading ability?

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www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjbgPy6la7XAhVItpQKHfnpC4YQFghHMAU&usg=AOvVaw3SuD8SCTftSlcn7OZ62ywb
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Most people don't know how to chain semi-colons and Em-Dashes to extend their sentences far beyond reasonable limits.

now that people think it is worthy of expressing opinions and that everything is interpreted through a sell, like the liberals have taught them for centuries, people love short words and verbs of action, so the -ing from english is their favorite creative tool. People despise roman languages for lacking such a possibility of short expression.

plus of course the shit typography of html, another horror created by the eternal anglo

Open a random Victorian novel. Even though in that time the average sentence length was ''only'' 23 words, it was still way too long and makes for tedious reading. It's not the regression of reading ability, it's the evolution of language.

The avg sentence is 140 characters

Language is becoming more efficient I think. More is not necessarily better.

The average adult in the U.S reads at a 9th grade level....That's really sad.

Communication by emojis, cryptic text messages, twitter tweets, and the dd snapchat.

It's exactly the opposite: we've gotten better at condensing our sentences.

Basically is right.

Why did people back then have to write such long sentences?

by the way writing short sentences becomes very hard when you do not have a grasp of the grammar nor you have vocabulary. And using something else than feathers and ink makes you believe it is okay to write long sentences.Long time ago the rules of the ruling class were very short. TOday their rules are several lines long, but because the technic used but also because people do not know how to precise and short, precision which is required for the rules.

so writing short sentences is indeed cute when you need to sell something, but once you no longer know how to precise and short the books of rules become unreadable.

As someone who works with teenagers, it'd be a downright miracle if we can even keep it at that point with the idiots passing through now. Many of them can barely read at a 4th or 5th grade level.

Technology has become so cheap, as to allow peasents to speak their dirty lies.

Franco Berardi has an interesting part in his book "Futurability" about the condensing of language into signs which function as syntax of a connective machine (emojis).

Nobody wants to hear you talk for that long.

Wow. No kidding? That's a shame. Bigly. Sad!

Because they were retarded.

>Why is this happening?

It's just a natural evolution in style. In itself, it has nothing to do with quality or depth. In the eighteenth century, this entire post would probably be one sentence, but so what?

Two hundred years ago the average adult couldn't read at all.

Ever read something from the 1700s like the writings of the American "founding fathers"? Jesus those fuckers love their parenthetical phrases. It's not a good thing.

>It's just a natural evolution in style so in itself, it has nothing to do with quality or depth, and in the eighteenth century this entire post would probably be one sentence but so what?

>And it's even shorter today. Why is this happening?

The invention of the typewriter.

Nietzsche himself noticed that his sentences became more terse after making the switch from handwriting.

>It's just a natural evolution in style and has nothing to do with quality or depth in itself (in the eighteenth century, this entire post would probably be one sentence, but so what?).

...

Jesus wept.

Read Beckett. Beauty has nothing to do with sentence length, it's to do with brevity and music.

>it was never meant to be a manual!

Are you trying to communicate something?

>The Victorian era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study. Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition. In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1889 and 2004 to estimate the decline in g that may have resulted from the presence of dysgenic fertility. Using psychometric meta-analysis we computed the true correlation between simple reaction time and g, yielding a decline of − 1.16 IQ points per decade or − 13.35 IQ points since Victorian times.
Huh, really gets the noggin joggin

It’s actually harder to write shorter, more basic sentences than longer ones . Communicating ideas in a clear and succinct way is the sign of a good writer.

>semi-colons
>em-dash dickinson
hnnng! my two favorite tools of the english trade.

heh, that's funny! mind if i use that?

...

The fact that this entire post would probably be one sentence in the eighteenth century contains no reference value since the shortening of English is just a natural evolution in style and has nothing to do with quality or depth in itself.

ive always had a hard time buying into the reaction time/iq thing, it smells like bullshit

I heard one writer, whose name escapes me, put it this way, "I'm sorry this letter is so long but I didn't have time to make it shorter."

Holy shit, this is too meta for me

>not extending your sentences to the point where it becomes absolutely ludicrous, and the reader, in the midst of reading one of your several-page-long sentences, rips out the offending page in utter frustration of the torment to which you have subjected him

wow what a faggot lmao

>It's just a natural evolution in style that, in itself, has nothing to do with quality or depth; in the eighteenth century, this entire post would probably be one sentence, but so what?

Have you ever read Dickens? The language of that era wasn't better, it was meandering, masturbatory, and a slog to read through because of its length. There is nothing wrong with being concise with your sentences. Plenty of brilliant authors have managed to have beautiful prose without being autistic about it like Victorian-era writers.

this desu. when you have a solid hour to bust out a letter to your wife when you are at sea you can make it all flowery and long but with modern communication you can just get to the heart of the matter and tell her to buy some lube

What the fuck

>"My darling wife, the love of my life, the angel who comes to deliver from strife, I ask of you but one small favor, minuscule in scope I should pray, for if you find the task exceedingly taxing you are by all means permitted to not undertake what I beseech of you; tonight I plan to use the short boa constrictor which makes its home betwixt my legs in order to inject my unborn progeny into your warm depths, but instead of spilling my warm seed into your moist cavern--a greenhouse for a baby in the beginning stages of life--I plan to insert my thick and pulsating rod of fury into your bowels, for I have found as of late that after the birth of several children, your love-tunnel is not what it once was, and plowing your fertile fields seems akin to driving a carriage through a dusty field: lonely, dry, and far too vast for my liking; as such, I would very much appreciate it if you would complete the small task of purchasing a source of lubricating moisture with which I will be able to plow your small but unused fields, though they be not fertile."
>"wtf, can you please stop this shit im fucking busy just tell me what u need fucker"

>implying writing more concisely is somehow worse

"butt stuff bae?"
"k"

Boileau is a memer, user. Syntax is where a writer truly shines.

>concision is bad
Long victorian sentences are nauseating.

semi-colon use is at an all-time low basically

most people literally just write in discrete short thoughts because that's how they were taught in English class. I would argue it doesn't make that much of a difference, but people are just close-minded and retarded, and whenever I bring up the numerous ways semi-colons can be used I basically get called an autist

Well put

agreed.
/thread
gtg kthxbai

twitter already formed the way future paragraphs will be written, the entire popular culture is on it

here's to the real literature retreating to the bloomian caves

And in 2017 completely literate idiots make up facts that are totally wrong and post them on the internet.

This is nonsense. The evolution of language does not herald a guarantee of improvement, it is just as likely to be regress as it is progress. English is not evolving to become more condensed as you might think, rather it is becoming simpler, less stylized, less rich, and less forceful--all the characteristics of a language aptly suited to every discipline of the Arts. Comparing Victorian era English to that of modern English, especially students, there isn't just a contrast in the length and style but also in the complexity of the ideas presented and the clarity by which they are conveyed. Most ideas you find in university cannot be transmitted through simple 10 word sentences, they require longer trains of thought which cannot be communicated effectively without longer sentences.

People used circuitous language back in the day because that was in fashion. It was an aesthetic decision, not the result of a deeper and more complicated sentiment being expressed.

t. Brainlets who lost their attention spans long ago in their nightly world of warcraft binges

Yes, I firmly believe the average Victorian era intellectuals, be it writers, historians, politicians, etc, were far more intelligent than the average modern ones. This can be argued on the basis of language alone: most Victorians had a far greater grasp of the English language than we do today. Take Macaulay's History for example, a best seller in his time and during the decades which proceeded from his death, and yet if given to a university student today, I very much doubt they would be able to navigate beyond the first few pages.

>implying Victorian/Elizabethan literature isn't some of my all-time favorite

Victorian/Elizabethan literature is the height of English. That being said, short and concise CAN be good. I would just argue that it is difficult to find good, short and concisely constructed lit.

Orwell comes to mind.

...

This stems from the disuse of proper grammatical function; the literate populace has become lazy through constant communication facilitated by modern technology; universal literacy is such that the laziest of proletari are granted sovereignty over the evolution of the written word; no longer are the beauty of semi-colons and colons to be found in writing, and, indeed, so too with commas; language is quickly degenerating at a rate proportional to the mental quality of those practitioners of language.

At least we're constantly improving at shitposting.

Not really, no.

i c wat u did ther LOL

My wife teaches at an inner-city charter high school and most of her students are at that or below. Before it gets all /pol/ here, 50% of the classes are white, 5% Asian, and 10% Hispanic, the rest is black. She has some students who are juniors who can't even read. The US education system needs a major overhaul, and the solution isn't just to blindly throw money at it. I know I may be biased, but teachers need to earn more so the field becomes more competitive. As it is now, they'll take anyone who has a pulse just to babysit a class and not teach anything. Some of her colleagues are absolute morons; she actually had an instructor get on her for using too difficult of words when she used the phrase "bank heist." A lot of her colleagues had to retake the ACT before they started teaching because their own original scores weren't considered "college ready." Many failed to reach the bar most 12th grade students are supposed to reach even on their second go around after getting their college degrees. What also doesn't help is that they are absolute plebs. A lot of them still exclusively read Harry Potter and John Green well into their thirties, and call them their favorite books. Some of them complain The Great Gatsby is too hard for them.

And yet this is a miracle compared to reading standards in the Victorian age.

Reading and writing is becoming more accessible, which isn't a bad thing at all. The market for dense, intellectual writing will always be there; it's just that more plebian markets are opening as well.

And an intellectual from victorian times would be at a loss if you gave him to read any random Veeky Forums post, or any Veeky Forums post really. You might be right that the average person was probably smarter than most people today but your argument is retarded.

This is why I come here

Plebeian markets should be limited to grain and doctrine

that's what happens when writers are paid by the word.

i'm laughing my ass off next to my wife, and trying to explain to her why i can't tell her what's so funny.

lolwut

No.

>tfw not smart enough to make Elizabethan style shitposts.
Flowery bullshit is my fetish.

English was better before the Great Vowel Shift. Then everything fucked up and went downhill from there.

The French really do ruin everything.

Holy shit, I'm dying

Pascal

If you're going to be nostalgic, at least bring up aesthetics. Otherwise, it's just going to look like you're some LARPer who would rather speak in an antiquated way.

simple language is usually better. and perhaps, even harder to write in some cases. The more vivid you are, the more clearly you are communicating, in general that means better writing.

The average adult thinks "9th grade level" is a meaningful description of someone's reading ability, rather than arbitrary bureaucratic jargon.

>And yet this is a miracle compared to reading standards in the Victorian age.

It wouldn't be miraculous at all. Literacy rates in the Victorian era were around 80% depending on the country.

...

Gonna need a source on that.
www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjbgPy6la7XAhVItpQKHfnpC4YQFghHMAU&usg=AOvVaw3SuD8SCTftSlcn7OZ62ywb
In England at least it was well below 80%

Back then, class differences were much more pronounced, and were highlighted by everything including manner of writing and speaking. Writing in a "fancy" way was a way of distinguishing yourself from the lower classes. While class differences are still very much prevalent, they are not as deep as they were then, and over time we came to see how ridiculous it is to write superfluously for no reason other than to look good.

Counterpoint to this, the internet has democratized speech and, in much the same way that governmental democracy tends to pull down the highest achievers in pursuit of equality, textual/literary democracy has enforced a Veeky Forums market patronized on average by lower intellects than ever before

but the left one is just corporate speaks for saying "the CEO need his bonus so we're going to fuck some nobodies. kthxbie." while airing ads depicting them as caring and compassionate guys.
Of course you can condense and clarify a text meant to distort and manage the public perception of said corporation

>Even though in that time the average sentence length was ''only'' 23 words, it was still way too long and makes for tedious reading.
Ironically, this sentence is 24 words long.

isn't this obvious?

Fuck Veeky Forums, I needed this.

It's too long for an AVERAGE sentence length. Of course some sentences will be that long even today. But having most sentences be 23 words long is bad because it is too long.

Is this a Hemingway AI?

this meme again. Reading literature that is actually good and super-dense but worthwhile academia has always been the domain of the few. There is simply an overflow of rubbish published in the market these days and whilst I understand your concerns OP historical perspective is needed before we can universally claim that modern minds are regressing.

Also most people are simply idiots. That's always been the case and always will be.

is this the birth of a new age of literature?

Cause; once you begin; any sentence--any--can extend into infinity--like this--on and on it will go, no end shall cometh us; for we are doomed to read the never-ending sentence--you might find this shocking; with em-dash and semicolon, why use any other punctuation but the comma--I ask; they are so versatile, that, you can string together whatever you wish--I like chocolate--like you and I, whatever you wish to write; let it be written.

reminds me of the page and a half long sentence in les miserables

FeelsBadMan

Would you like to know how I know you're a brainlet? Because you conflate knowledge with intelligence.

>Victorian literature
>height of anything
try again, user.

tl;dr

haha