Presidential speeches, going downhill...

Presidential speeches, going downhill...  According to the study that produced the graph at right, the reading level (sophistication, wordiness, vocabulary, etc.) of presidential speeches has been going down for a long, long time.  The study used the Flesch-Kincaid readability tests to objectively assess the speeches, which are somewhat controversial amongst language scientists.  The analysis points out something that these tests completely miss: the impact of a speech upon its listeners (or readers).  The Gettysburg Address, for example, scores very modestly on the Flesch-Kincaid tests, but has had an outsized impact.

I'm not sure what to take away from this, but it's definitely ponder-worthy...