Re: Fog Index

[Jan Henning <henning -at- r-l -dot- de>]

>Read more about the Fog index at http://tech-head.com/fog.htm

Despite Geoff's warning, I took a look at the website. I have several
criticisms to add:

- There is absolutely no hint that this theory has ever been verified,
let alone successfully so. This alone makes the fog index worthless for
serious information design.

- The Bible and Shakespeare both have low fog indexes, which is claimed
to make them easy to understand. However, I find both tiresome to
understand because of the antiquated language (presuming a classic bible
text). By contrast, I have absolutely no problem with Time, Newsweek, or
the Wallstreet Journal. This may have to do with the fact that I am not a
native Englsih speaker, but shows that the fog index disregards important
factors.

- Using a lot of pronouns would lower the fog index, since they are very
short words and often save on the number of words. However, if they are
not used judiciously, they can make texts much harder to understand since
it is unclear exactly to which preceding words each refers.

- It is insulting (to the audience) to suggest that long sentences lose
them in the dense fog. Not everybody is a child or idiot. In fact, for
some audiences, it may be appropriate to use more sophisticated
structures (with which it is easier to express sophisticated concepts) in
order to lose fewer of them.

- Finally, although this does not really say something about the theory,
I cannot resist pointing out that, while the sentence "Don't count verbs
that make three syllables or adding -es or -ed." with its fog index of 5
should be well within my grasp, I cannot figure out what it says. The
same goes for "The resulting number is your Fog Index, a rough measure of
how many words of schooling it would take to understand what you have
written." - maybe I should have spent a few more words at school :-)

Regards
Jan Henning

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