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> The qualities of American writing have clearly been on a precipitous decline for a very long time now, predating AI slop and even spell checkers and computers.

https://www.literaturelust.com/post/what-writers-need-to-kno...

> Every NYT bestseller from 1960 to 2014 falls in the seventh-grade level spread, from 4th to 11th.

> ...

> Since 2000, only 2 bestsellers have scored higher than 9th-grade readability.

> ... ...

> The bestselling authors of our time are writing at the 4th-grade level.

> > “8 books tie for the lowest score,” a 4.4, just above 4th-grade level. Prolific, well-known authors with huge sales: James Patterson, Janet Evonvich, and Nora Roberts.”

> These three authors have written a combined total of 419 books.

by andai2 hours ago|

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Whenever I read something from roughly the first half of the 20th century (I'm not sure where the cutoff point is, it seems to the 1960s), I'm struck by the quality of the writing. I'm not sure what happened, but it's pretty clear that at some point we stopped taking ourselves seriously.

We see the same thing in how people dress. People used to write "respectably", and they used to dress the same, and in TV interviews they spoke with great care and deliberation.

Then we threw all of it down the toilet.