25 Years Ago in The Actuarial Review
By Walter C. WrightTwenty-five years ago there was a widespread effort to simplify insurance policy language, and the Flesch Test was the standard measure of readability. Although this test may not be familiar to our younger members, they are likely to find the following article as amusing as it was 25 years ago.
Putting Flesch to the Test
By David H. Raymond
(Reprinted from The Actuary, October 1979)The Flesch scale of reading ease, appropriately obscure for almost 30 years, is now a fad less enjoyable but much costlier than hula hoops. Its reading ease score is 206.835 - 84.6 S/W - 1.015 W/U, where S = number of syllables, W = number of words, U = number of units. (A unit is like a sentence, but sometimes starts with a conjunction, sometimes has no subject, sometimes no verb either.)
Maximum score is achieved by a sentence consisting of a single monosyllabic word:
Damn — Score = 121
Dammit — Score = 37
Damn it — Score = 120.Note that the three constants in the formula have six, four, and three significant digits. The reason is beyond the scope of this paper.
The Flesch formula fad now surging through the United States is particularly prevalent among politicians. The Massachusetts legislature has decreed that an insurance policy must score at least 50. But consider just the first 144 words of the 280-word opening sentence of the Massachusetts statute...
The score achieved by this passage is minus 6. The message is clear—do as the Massachusetts legislatives say, not as they do.
Now consider the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, translated from page 483 of Advanced Calculus by Angus E. Taylor.
"Theorem: Let S be a set. Let it be bounded. Let it be infinite. Then there is at least one point of accumulation of S.
"Proof: S lies in a closed interval. Call it I1. Divide I1 into two parts. Each point in S lies in one part or the other. Therefore at least one of the parts contains an infinite number of point of S. Call this part I2. Divide I2 into two parts. At least one of these parts contains an infinite number of points S. Call this part I3. Keep it up. You get a nest of closed
intervals (In). There is one point common to all the intervals of the nest. This point is an accumulation point of S."Score = 206.835 - 84.6 (154/122) - 1.015 (122/17) = 93
The last example is from Truck Stop Lust by Emanson.
"Crackle, crackle came interference over the citizens band radio in Hernando Portocarrera's eighteen wheeler. Suddenly a sultry voice became audible and purred, `Hello, eighteen wheeler jockeys. This here's Cynthia Salmonella at Leroy's Trucker Haven, and it's lonely tonight in Massachusetts. How about some of you eighteen wheeler jockeys pulling into Leroy's for some exotic relaxation?'"
Score = 206.835 - 84.6 (108/55) - 1.015 (55/4) = 27
Imaginary research indicates that fewer than 1% of Massachusetts citizens have even a vague notion what the theorem is about, but 84% of them have a pretty good idea what sort of exotic relaxation Cynthia is offering Hernando. But if we are to mindlessly follow the formula that the Massachusetts legislature prescribes we must conclude that the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem is easier reading than Truck Stop Lust.
