The Short‑Sentence Myth: Tracing the Evolution of English Prose

In contemporary writing circles it is almost reflexive to hear the exhortation, "keep sentences to ten or twelve words." The advice carries a veneer of tidy advice: short sentences are easier to parse, to quote, to read in a hallway. Yet a closer inspection of the linguistic record—from the long, ornate phrases of Sir Thomas More to the clipped prose of Ernest Hemingway—argues that sentence length is an unreliable proxy for clarity. ### The Rise of the Plain Style The nineteenth‑century pivot toward a “plain style” was not a spontaneous fad. It mirrored a larger cultural shift: the increasing importance of commercial communication and the post‑Reformation insistence on clarity in religious texts. Translators such as William Tyndale and the editors of the 1549 and 1552 Prayer Books stripped away rhetorical flourishes and introduced short, finite‑verb sentences that mirror spoken syntax. These editors laid the groundwork for the modern English sentence. ### Syntax vs. Rhetoric Modern prose can be divided into two broad families: 1. **Logical (syntactic) sentences** – a finite verb with a subject and a predicate, possibly with subordinate clauses. Their structure is hierarchical: a main clause governs the rest. 2. **Rhetorical sentences** – long, balanced periods that play on parallelism or contrast rather than on grammatical hierarchy. English writers from Addison to Johnson mastered both. Addison, for instance, blended rhythmic periods with syntactic clarity, producing sentences that were both elegant and comprehensible. By the eighteenth century the plain style had become dominant in newspapers and scientific journals, but the ornate style lingered in literary and devotional works. ### Modern Misconceptions In the 21st century, a data‑driven view proliferated: corpus studies measuring average words per sentence suggest a decline from the 19th to the 21st century. These studies, however, often conflated punctuation changes with true sentence shortening. A period that once served as a pause mark is now often replaced by a semicolon or a comma, leaving the underlying clause count unchanged. Furthermore, the claim that a shorter sentence is automatically easier to understand ignores the role of *content* and *syntax*. A ten‑word sentence that packs several technical terms can be far more opaque than a 30‑word sentence of plain vocabulary. Experiments in readability show that *syntactic simplicity*—clear subject–verb–object order, limited subordinate material, and explicit reference—predicts comprehension better than length alone. ### Spoken English and the Modern Prose The 20th‑century rise of radio, television, and the internet has steered prose toward a speech‑like rhythm. Modern news articles, blog posts, and even scientific abstracts often employ fragments, imperative clauses, and colloquial phrasing—elements that mimic conversational speech. While this can enhance engagement, it also creates a hybrid form that blurs the boundary between fully grammatical sentences and free‑form fragments. A striking illustration is the New York Times paragraph cited in the raw text. The original eight‑sentence block that followed standard syntactic conventions can be compressed into a three‑sentence summary without sacrificing essential meaning. The trade‑off is loss of nuance, not improvement of readability. ### The Core Lesson The enduring question is not whether English prose has become shorter; it is whether it has become clearer. Historical evidence suggests that clarity has long hinged on two principles: * **Logical syntax** – a finite verb that anchors the clause, ensuring that each sentence can be parsed independently. * **Plain style** – minimal rhetorical flourishes that allow the reader to focus on the facts rather than the form. These principles predate the modern trend toward brevity and have been applied by writers across eras. Shortness is a byproduct, not a goal. In practice, the best prose balances syntactic order with appropriate content density, allowing readers to follow the thread of meaning without being distracted by superfluous detail. ### Practical Takeaways for Modern Writers * **Prioritize syntax**: Begin each sentence with a clear subject and verb, and use subordinate clauses sparingly. * **Embrace the plain style**: Resist decorative metaphors unless they serve a specific rhetorical purpose. * **Measure comprehension, not length**: Use readability metrics that account for clause complexity and vocabulary difficulty, rather than raw word counts. * **Watch for punctuation drift**: A comma can replace a period with minimal semantic impact, but it does not shorten the underlying clause. In short, the craft of writing has always been more about *clarity* than about *brevity*. Recognizing this distinction lets writers craft prose that is both expressive and accessible, honoring a tradition that stretches from Tyndale’s Bible to today’s tweets.