Talk:Plain language

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[edit] My kingdom for a source?

"In the 1940s, Robert Gunning and Rudolf Flesch conducted extensive studies of what Americans read. They found that the most popular literature, magazines and pulp fiction, were written at the 7th-grade levels. Today, all popular novels such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Da Vinci Code are written at the 7th-grade level. Gunning worked with the United Press and Flesch worked with the Associated Press. They were able to bring down the grade-level of the writing of those organizations from the 16th to the 11th-grade level, where most newspapers remain today."

Astounding! That would explain the cause of what seems like sophomoric writing in newspapers today. The implications of this are profound.