Comment by ascorbic
4 days ago
I think we're biased by the fact that old-fashioned writing style always sounds more fancy and formal. I don't know how much kids' writing you've read recently (school writing, not social media), but I reckon most reasonably smart 10 year olds today absolutely could write like that. My daughter is 10 and (parental bias notwithstanding) she's smart but not genius-level, and she has writing that complex in her school books.
Definitely biased. The older things we read tend to be great works by smart people so we attribute that style to intelligence. But it was just written style, among a certain class, once upon a time.
English styles changed. For example, Hemingway was brutally brief.
I believe (but don't know) that the further from the Anglosphere one goes today the longer and more ornate the written language tends. Anyone know how to confirm or deny? I have only anecdata from those who were high-school educated in Farsi or Russian before moving to the US.