ver·bi·age (vûr b - j, -b j). n. 1. An excess of words for the purpose

When a text is written, it is either written with an audience in mind or the audience is assumed to be similar in tastes as the writer. Typically people have limited patience with texts that are too wordy. Newspapers are preferably full of pictures that are big and colourful when articles are to attract attention.

With all the attention on high brow, must have features like citations, and references Wikipedia is becoming more and more intellectual and harder to read. Check out the English main page; words and more words with pictures so small that details are lost. The size of footnotes and references in a featured article is bigger then the size of the illustrations ...

It was a pleasure to leaf through paper encyclopaedias; when a picture caught the attention you read a bit only to move on. Sadly much of the art of illustrating seems lost for now. Is it a victim of our braininess?
Thanks,
      GerardM