Hi, Benjamin,

Thanks for this article. Loved it. I, too, rebel against the idea that people can't understand a complex sentence. I hate the idea that copywriters are taught to write at a 5th grade level.

If you haven't read "Nabokov's Favorite Word is Mauve", you should. It's a fascinating look at real data of how we dumbing down the language and our reading material. Here's an article I wrote about it: https://medium.com/honest-creative/one-book-that-will-make-you-a-better-writer-2a939af1b2dc

Appreciate the Hemingway and Faulkner references as well. Throw in a bit of Fitzgerald and it's easy to see that the sentences don't have to be short and words don't have to be simple for a work to be successful.

Thanks!