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I, the head behind the hand behind the written voice you now read,
have acquired, quite illegally I'm afraid, a new computer application
which amongst the multitude of other wonderful features bestowed
upon and within its majestic non-physical self, it's programmers
have packaged and reduced wisdom enough to grade whichever written
text is selected upon invocation. Basing its findings upon several
criteria, including the number of syllables contained per word,
the percentage of third level multi-syllabic words, and the character
count across every noun, verb, adjective, sentence and paragraph;
the diminutive program calculates two scores (well, really two
and a half). The first score is Gunning's Fog index, which tends
to return a smaller range of numbers; score two is Flesch's index
and grade level (an indicator of placement into a theoretical
public school) where one strives for lower numbers. This paragraph,
loquacious though it may be, exactly parallels the paragraph that
was its predecessor. The differences, besides the more vivacious
and daringly opulent style, are the telling fact that the fog
score of the paragraph you are now close to finishing was a stunning
22, while its Flesch score was a ground-skimming 14. Though potentially
hampered by the truncated duration of this soliloquy, the sum
of my words have risen and grown into a more acceptable judicature--college
or university student. My parents second mortgage was never better
spent.
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