Thursday, January 16, 2020

Long or short?

It's my feeling that American readers prefer essays, articles and blogposts to be longer than we like in the UK, where we seem to appreciate brevity and conciseness. I casually explain it to myself as Americans liking to 'get their money's worth' but more seriously wonder if there may be a couple of other factors at work.

1. Although both the UK and the USA are slightly below the international average in literacy rates, those Americans who do read, read more - about 12 books per capita p.a. compared with 10 in Britain.  Also, this infographic places the USA 7th globally in terms of 'literate behaviour characteristics', behind Nordic countries and Switzerland; we rank 17th on the same basis.

2. American attendance at Christian churches is double that in the UK. Maybe they're more used to long sermons - remember Meghan's preacher starting to let himself go at the wedding? On the other hand, the most religious may not be the most well-read.

So is my impression correct and if so, what are the reasons?

2 comments:

Paddington said...

My former dean used to complain that emails from department chairs in the humanities, fine arts and social sciences ran to several pages to make a point, where those from the sciences were one paragraph.

Paddington said...

As to Americans reading more, I would posit by 42 years of observation that we tend to be polar extremes: teatotal or alcoholic, obese or super fit, reader or illiterate.