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I'm not sure if I have anything to base this on, other than a simple hunch. My general feeling towards written English, especially journalistic English, is that it is becoming simpler and simpler. Perhaps due to the rise in social media, lowered attention spans or just the drop in Aesop Rock listeners.

A look at some random vocab:

castigate

might looks like this.

But this is all conjecture, is there any proof that English is becoming simplified?

Mou某
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  • Apparently Aesop Rock is in Portland OR, but I have no idea what noise it makes. – Andrew Leach Aug 17 '17 at 09:50
  • Perhaps I am either exceptionally dim, or is there something missing from the question? What is the usage chart for the word "castigate" meant to be telling us? – WS2 Aug 17 '17 at 10:27
  • @WS2 Castigate is given as an example of a word which is becoming less common and might indicate a simplification of English since around 1970. There are probably other words which go in the other direction. The chart is purely qualitative as there is no indication of what the vertical scale is. – Andrew Leach Aug 17 '17 at 11:24
  • As you say, the chart is not really indicative of anything. The assumption seems to be that the word is being used less because it's a complicated word, but we can't know that unless we see what has replaced it. This is like assuming that spelling is deteriorating because of all the misspellings on the Internet and abbreviations used in text messaging. – Barmar Aug 17 '17 at 16:12
  • To be contrary, ad copy in 1950s magazines use a lot of words that don't add anything to the overall message of "We exist. Buy this". I recently saw a 1950s business letter that took 4 paragraphs to get to the point of "here's your refund". There is a directness to less flowery language. – user662852 Aug 18 '17 at 00:47
  • @user3306356 There may well be a trend towards simplification, if not in the sophistication of the words used, at least in the breadth of vocabulary: "The February 14, 2000, issue of Time magazine reported some disturbing news: in 1950 the average 14-year-old had a vocabulary of 25,000 words. By 1999, the average 14-year-old's vocabulary had dropped to only 10,000 words, less than half." http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0073123587/student_view0/chapter3/how_much_do_you_know_about_vocabulary_.html – Zan700 Aug 18 '17 at 01:46

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