When I set out to become a daily newspaper journalist, my editors dismissed the Gunning Fog readability score as a useless abstraction no one in a newsroom had time to calculate. They rarely mentioned Rudolf Flesch except in passing reference to his 1955 book, Why Johnny Can't Read.

There were no desktop computers. Had they been commonplace, a Java-based application called Flesh, which implements both of the well-known readability algorithms which bear Rudolph Flesch's name, could have helped my editors achieve their news-writing goals.

Flesh calculates the Flesch Reading Ease and the Flesch-Kincaid Readability scores quickly. That moves both out of the realm of unwieldy abstraction and allows them to be put to immediate, practical use. Exactly the kind of use my editors valued.

They wanted stories crafted from a logical stream of short, clear sentences, all built from commonplace and colloquial words, and completed to meet daily deadlines.

Those editors would have seen that the two scores improve as an author pursues the goals toward which they drove their newsrooms, and that Flesh can be used under deadline pressure.

I suspect that my mentors, men like Paul Jennewein and Charlie Clay, would have seen Flesh (written by my son Jack)installed on every newsroom desktop, and used.

Flesh is fast, will run the scores for every variety of document I create and does so without distracting anyone else from his or her appointed task.

Newsroom budgets at the time often made "Spartan" seem excessive, but the price is right.

It would be right if there were one.

There is no down side and the needs of our world are just like those of the old newsrooms.

Web users are as exacting as were my editors of yore. They reward the same general kind of writing that good reporters still produce for deadline.

The web even prefers the inverted-pyramid story structure developed in the days when newspapers were often read standing up in a subway car, newspaper in one hand, ceiling strap in the other.

Then in the subways, life was awash in distractions, as it is now.

We call our uproar by elevated names, like "multi-tasking." And it leaves us with the ability to comprehend of a 1950s subway strap hanger.

Flesh can give writers an edge as they strive to make their writing understood in this hurley, burley, digital world.

If we take time to use it well.

Flesh calculations for this blog

• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.66
• Flesch Reading Ease Level: 62.78

Both scores were calculated using the text on my desktop, not by accessing this blog over the Web.

They indicate that the entry can be read and understood by someone with less than a high school education.

I hope so.

That is how succession of editors tried to persuade me to write, some with more success than others.

That is what I intend.

Transparency note: Flesh is the work my younger son, Jack Frink and of Chris Biagini. The logo was designed by Jack's longtime friend Cole Smith. None of them was consulted about this blog entry.