Another Cranmer fan

"The more we read," writes James Fallows, "the more we see reminders that experiences or perceptions we thought were distinctive to us are in fact widespread, even banal." And here I thought I was the only one who ever noticed that!

Fallows has in mind his admiration of the Book of Common Prayer:

From first consciousness until age 17 I spent so much time at Episcopal church services with the "old style" [Thomas] Cranmer liturgy that even now I can recite very long passages by rote. . . . [It is] a particular form of stately English whose wording may seem antique but whose rhythms retain a classic beauty. I wouldn't, and can't, write the same way. Yet passages like those after the jump have stuck in my mind as the pure idea of how sentences should be paced, should repeat for emphasis yet also vary, should end.

And now I learn from Ben Schwarz that this is a completely clichéd observation!