“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs” has a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level of 2.3, meaning an average second-grader could read and understand it.

“The tawny fox catapults over the lethargic canines with celerity” has a reading level of 11.9, meaning that it would be understood by seniors in high school. (And never mind the fact that foxes are also canines, I’m creating an example here.)

(The entirety of this entry has a score of 11.5, though it was only 11.0 until I changed the “0″ placeholder to the actual score.)

(And now that I’ve explained the change in scores, the reading level has jumped to 12.0.)

(Stop that! The previous parenthetical remark has bumped it back down to 11.8.)

(10.5)