Temptations of the flesch

Abstract

A Briton's educational level, social class, sex and age all go to determine the degree of linguistic difficulty which he finds acceptable in reading matter. Tables show how these determinants of acceptability relate to readability as measured by word and sentence lengths. It is hypothesised that long sentences are difficult because comprehension depends upon combining cortical patterns evoked by grammatically related elements; but in long sentences the pattern evoked by one element may have decayed before the next related element is read. Long words may cause difficulty because they are generally the more precise words, requiring longer to categorise semantically; but the longer the search for a word's meaning, the more likely that the preceding context will be lost beyond recall.