Now, whose this Arne Anderson fellow? Discuss! Please.

When every last intellectual on the planet started to the interlard their cant with "sort of," I thought THAT was one of the four horsemen (Arne Anderson to be specific). We had this...sort of...inarticulateness. Turned out to be just a bump in the road. Here I was all in a lather about the fall from enlightenment.

Could it be that, in a time when people's lives were less complicated, people were more given to contemplation. People used the extra space after a period to give the mind that split second of time to "inwardly digest" while reading. To savor the moment. The space makes it more likely that you will "leave off" then pick up where you left off. And that in our era, the heightened sensory input of modern life leaves us little inclined to linger. It's not a matter of what is right or wrong, ignorant or enlightened, it's just the sign of the times.