[pattisapu]

To a native English speaker like myself, perhaps the thing most different about classical Sanskrit is the heavy use of nouns and nominalizations (participles and so on). Coupled with other things like the passive voice, I wonder if the "courtly" or "elegant" effect sought out was something like these researchers have been studying. (Perhaps Samuel Johnson's style has something of this in English.)

Contrast the Strunk, White, Orwell et al. approach of directness and writing with verbs. I have often preferred that approach throughout my life, and appreciate reading writers who employ that approach.

Yet as I get older, I find myself in more and more situations in which I am read and perceived as confrontational, difficult, or accosting, to an extent that I rarely want. The main dynamics of particular situations aside, I wonder if too much brushstroke with verbs did not help my cause.

Also, it may be worth noting, as Gertrude Stein put it: Sentences are not emotional, but paragraphs are.