Go back a century, and your "objective meaning" per line ratio goes down a significant bunch. Language has never be this condensed, and the number of words to convey an idea never this small. One of the problems in this, though, might be one of the ever-increasing over-simplification, over-abstraction and superficial impositions of meaning, where certain phrasings make a thing true just because this is the way young people would express it™... It's complicated.
I don’t know much about century old articles, but if you’re about classic books, then these were never concise. Good written, yes. But the usual writer’s syndrome is also there. What could be said in few sentences and links went as a book instead.
Look at this article. It tries to be narrative of an airport, kids and older people doing something in their seats. Is this relevant? Is it a cool story worth a ‘classics’ badge? It is just bs that is mimicking an observation report. This imaginary airport arguably was not even a source of author’s initial thought on topic.
Centuries — maybe. But I think that on the scale of decades the trend is still being more wordy and attention/seo seeking.
At least for journalism, this is a hot and increasingly pesky trend. It's the Ira Glass style:
"63 year old Barb Waterhouse puts the kettle on" ... sound of boiling water ... "and as I settle into a plush easy chair, i can see that the color of the leaves is changing" ... sounds of birds chirping ...
In what should be an article about urban planning. It's SO annoying and I can't be blamed for "skimming."
I'm reminded of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) which I tried to read recently and couldn't get through due to the writing. Here is one of the most highly "liked" quotes from GoodReads:
>> Soon after the completion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled into one intense and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came,—the hour that comes only once; his star rose in the horizon,—that star that rises so often in vain, to be remembered only as a thing of dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop the figure,—he saw and won the love of a high-minded and beautiful woman, in one of the northern states, and they were affianced. He returned south to make arrangements for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were returned to him by mail, with a short note from her guardian, stating to him that ere this reached him the lady would be the wife of another. Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as many another has done, to fling the whole thing from his heart by one desperate effort. Too proud to supplicate or seek explanation, he threw himself at once into a whirl of fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the time of the fatal letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of the season; and as soon as arrangements could be made, he became the husband of a fine figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and, of course, everybody thought him a happy fellow.
In all likelihood the author was asked to write 1200 words to promote her book.
Maryanne Wolf is the author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World
So I guess the article is supposed to pique your interest sufficiently to then go buy the book. I'm going to side with you here though, the majority of the book could probably be condensed to <2000 words. And anyway, the contract to publish the book probably came with a word count requirement: give me 50,000 words and we'll publish it.
A century ago newspapers were under incredibly tight constraints. Printing and typesetting was an expensive and non-trivial process so article length was severely constrained. And because printing took so long it required articles to be written and edited on a very demanding schedule. As to magazines and books, that's an entirely different matter.
Written 1668, it's written in a style that put a lot of long words after each other in a way that makes it hard to decipher to day. I had to follow a few obscure rules to understand things, one being not to start to try make sense of a sentence before reading up to the period. Towards the end, the wording was often upended completely by whatever additional constructs with which the author closed sentences. It isn't really because the individual words have become much different, but our use of language really shifted.
I'm fairly involved with creating or having created various materials for people who might be interested in buying our products. Even in the past 10 years or so, we've shifted to shorter pieces, survey results presented in the form of slides rather than words, short videos, etc. It's definitely more about things you can share on social media that people will glance through for a minute or two rather than carefully read on a plane.
Yes, but I'm not sure I see a direct correlation. Materials created 10 years ago were presumably appropriate for the marketing at the time. I think a lot of what companies create today would be viewed as too short and fluffy if you go back in time. (And doubtless for some audiences today, they are.)
Styles and preferences change. Look at the information density of ads as you go back in time.
