I find it amusing that there is no consensus way for understanding this “readability test.” If you check out the blogs that are posting it (some of which include lurkers here—yes, lurkers, I do know who you are) you’ll see that those who score “Genius” are quite proud of themselves, as are those who score “Jr. High.”

“Genius” is as genius does, I guess, but if the test is accurate at all (which I doubt), then there’s much to be said for being comprehensible to a large number of people—something that’s difficult to do the more arcane your subject or convoluted your vocabulary. Even coming in at high school level, HR is less readable than a newspaper, which is probably one reason why we get so little traffic.

by greg—Nov 14, 01:50 PM

well, it depends on the post. so, most of my posts on Leviathan read as College Undergrad. The post on Savages, though, reads as Genius… however, I have to believe that that is because of an extensive quote by Darwin, and not my own rather limping prose.

by Balthasar Gracián—Nov 14, 01:55 PM

Good point! I didn’t try to run them through individually.

by greg—Nov 14, 01:57 PM

and, it makes sense that most of the posts on the top would read high-school, as it is hermit greg, the journalist extrordanaire who is writing and not hg the deep philosopher of life…

by Balthasar Gracián—Nov 14, 02:01 PM

you have to go back 8 pages to change the readability of a list of articles. That page goes collegiate. (As does page 10.)

by greg—Nov 14, 02:03 PM

and, undoubtedly, it cannot tell the difference between the Atlantic and the Daily Citizen in terms of style and clarity. it most likely looks for average length of sentence, clause, syllable count, and a few other markers that have nothing to do with limpidity or pellucidness.

by Balthasar Gracián—Nov 14, 02:04 PM

Page 13 is Jr. High!

by greg—Nov 14, 02:05 PM