[samhh]

Readability is largely subjective. I think this sentiment is better described as optimising readability for the lowest common denominator in terms of both ability/experience and the most common style of code, that being imperative. That's not an unreasonable choice to make but there are other criterion by which to judge how easy or hard code is to read.

It comes up a lot in discussions about Go. A simple, "readable" language in which I can't tell you at a glance what a block of code does or is responsible for.