COBOL code is an interesting case, actually. One key reason why early computer languages were either verbose or cryptic is that they had very few standard symbols and punctuation to play with. It's why COBOL still has syntax like DIVIDE X INTO Y GIVING Z - you might not have a standard forward slash or divide symbol in your character set. Also why PASCAL (drawing from early ALGOL) went with BEGIN and END markers as opposed to the later use of braces.