This may be because editing has become easier and faster to iterate.
It’s comparatively easy to identify sentences that are too long. Is it easy to identify sentences that are too short? You can always add an additional sentence, but finding examples where sentences themselves should be longer is much harder. With more editing cycles, this leads to shorter and shorter sentences.
I had the same insight. Older writings would be closer to oral form with abundant disgressions. Modern text processing alows for evermore edits where the flow progressively gets structured with shorter sentences in the right order.
This may be because editing has become easier and faster to iterate.
It’s comparatively easy to identify sentences that are too long. Is it easy to identify sentences that are too short? You can always add an additional sentence, but finding examples where sentences themselves should be longer is much harder. With more editing cycles, this leads to shorter and shorter sentences.
I had the same insight. Older writings would be closer to oral form with abundant disgressions. Modern text processing alows for evermore edits where the flow progressively gets structured with shorter sentences in the right order.