Over at the Mirror of Justice web blog, they are experiencing a certain amount of hilarity by processing a variety of web pages through another web page that processes web pages for general readability, and educational achievement level, according to various algorithms. The curious will note that the variegated formulae tend to reward wordy sentences employing a multiplicity of polysyllabic words of three or more, as in opposition to abbreviated sentences employing polysyllabic words of two syllables or monosyllabic words.

I think it is of general interest whether such formulae consider the distinction between common nouns and appellations, (or should I write proper names rather than appellations), as well as the effect of parenthetical clauses upon overall readability. In addition, one is curious to what extent the algorithms are capable of distinguishing what philosophers cogitate about when they make a distinction between the employment of a word and the mention of that word. What philosophers have in their intellective capacities by that distinction they cogitate about is the difference between saying, for example, that antidisestablishmentarianism is a political and ecclesial thesis maintaining the position that stands in opposition to the thesis that the Church ought to be disestablished, and antidisestablishmentarianism is a polysyllabic word of seventeen syllables, seventeen consonants, and eleven vowels, for an overall total of twenty-eight instantiations of the elements of the alphabet employed in the spelling of that rather long polysyllabic word. In the first instantiation of antidisestablishmentarianism, antidisestablishmentarianism is actually employed, while in the second instantiation of antidisestablishmentarianism antidisestablishmentarianism is not employed, but, rather, antidisestablishmentarianism is merely mentioned.

The reason motivating my mentioning of the word antidisestablishmentarianism is that one might cogitate over the ways in which an individual might goose, (or should I write amplify) his or her scores on these various algorithms simply by mentioning the word antidisestablishmentarianism a multitude of times, in sentences of great length with a multitude of subordinate clauses, and employing a multitude of polysyllabic words, not to mention parenthetical remarks, without actually having the capacity to employ the word antidisestablishmentarianism even once, not to mention employing antidisestablishmentarianism a multitude of times. I recall with a great deal of clarity that when I was in the second year of elementary school, a multitude of my companions used to talk about the state of affairs that antidisestablishmentarianism was the word in the English language of the greatest length. When I think of that assertion now, I do not sense within me a high degree of certitude about the assertion, indeed, not even a high degree of probability about the assertion. Consider supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Many individuals would make the assertion that this is not a word. And yet supercalifragilisticexpialidocious can be located in the Oxford English Dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary makes the assertion that supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was originally a nonsense word, that has, nonetheless, come to have the expressive content of expressing excited approbation. Consequently, as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious has thirty-four instantiations of elements of the alphabet, while antidisestablishmentarianism has only twenty-eight instantiations of elements of the alphabet, we must make the assertion that supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is in fact a lexicographical item the length of which is of a greater magnitude than antidisestablishmentarianism.

Nonetheless, for my multiple companions mentioning antidisestablishmentarianism provided a plethora of entertainment, as we threw the word antidisestablishmentarianism around with abandon, without having any cogitative capacity for the employment of antidisestablishmentarianism in an assertion, much less the employment of antidisestablishmentarianism with any magnitude of facility, felicitousness, or rational fecundity.

As my age multiplied, I often would remember those halcyon days of relative immaturity. In the interim I had acquired the ability to analyze antidisestablishmentarianism into antidisestablishmentarianism's cognitive components, that is, to decompose it according to what the philosopher Rene Descartes calls analysis. Antidisestablishmentarianism stands in opposition to disestablishmentarianism. But disestablishmentarianism stands in opposition to establishmentarianism. Thus antidisestablishmentarianism is simpatico with establishmentarianism. Political philosophy and theology are certainly capable of illuminating our intellective capacities concerning the essential characteristics of establishmentarianism, and thus the disestablishmentarianism that stands in opposition to establishmentarianism, and the antidisestablishmentarianism that stands in opposition to disestablishmentarianism, but is, rather, simpatico with establishmentarianism.

However, at this point in the chronological series of this day, I should probably cease avoiding the evaluation of my students typewritten exercises, and leave to my readers the challenge to engage in the process of cogitation concerning whether the employment of large sentences with many subordinate clauses, that employ a multitude of polysyllabic words rather than monosyllabic words, for example, antidisestablishmentarianism, disestablishmentarianism, and establishmentarianism, as well as parenthetical remarks, genuinely adds to either the educational achievement of the composer of the passages, or overall readability of the passages, (or should I write felicity of expression.)

Enough jocularity.

Ioannis O'Callaghani

Ps. I can asseverate from personal and intimate experience that it is very difficult to type antidisestablishmentarianism, disestablishmentarianism, and establishmentarianism without forgetting to type various instantiations of elements of the alphabet throughout these various polysyllabic words.

Pps. It is devoutly to be wished that those who oculate upon and cogitate about what is postulated on this blog, should recognize that those individuals involved in corresponding on it are not incapable of a certain magnitude of jocularity.

Ppps. I ran this page through the algorithms, and it's still more readable than MOJ. ;-)