I'm sure my reader(s) who is (are!) all crusty oldies like me (except Tom!) will remember games like The Hobbit on the Spectrum or those old Infocom games such as Hithhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which depended on verb-object input to act in-game (the subject "I" being elided due to... well, mysterious comuter reasons, I guess).
I wonder if being forced to think in these direct terms shaped the prose-cortex (you know the one!) of a generation to favour plain writing of the type William Zinsser praises in his article? I admit that I have seen little evidence of it in my twenty-odd years as an editor!
It's a great article, by the way, that I heartily recommend. I'm going to be repeating his conclusion to everyone that asks me:
Short is better than long.
Simple is good.
Long latin nouns are the enemy
Anglo Saxon active verbs are your best friend
One thought per sentence.
EDIT: Holy cripes, that Infocom link is like crack cocaine! Or Pringles without that sort of nausea you get after eating Pringles.
