A note on Tom Paine's “vulgar” style

This essay examines aspects of Tom Paine's “vulgar” style by comparing the sentence structure and diction of Common Sense with that of four other pamphlets of the American Revolution. It concludes that Paine adapted his prose style to the popular audience, in part, by avoidance of noun modifiers and overly long subordinate clauses, and a preference for uninterrupted subject‐verb‐object sentences, active verbs, and forms of “to be.”