After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. (18.1)

That's the entire text of Section 1 of the 18th Amendment. You'll also notice it's a single sentence, and chances are if you turned that into a teacher, you'd get a red slash through it with "run-on" scrawled in the margin. Long though it might be, this is a perfectly understandable, albeit stiff, sentence.

Every word here matters. Read it again and try to delete even a single one. Anything you remove would alter the meaning of the text, which is the whole point.

Some of the word choices, including "hereby" and "thereof," can feel a bit old-fashioned. This was written around a hundred years ago, but even at that time, this would have looked formal. The reason for it is that the writers are trying to make it look like the Bill of Rights.

If you recall, the Bill of Rights is the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. If you've ever doubted the framers intended it as a living document, doubt no further. They modified it first just to show you can.

Anytime you do modify it, though, it has to be done with a sense of gravitas. You're not changing the menu at Arby's here; you're messing with the founding document of the nation. The intent is to make every amendment look like it could have been part of the Bill of Rights and to integrate it seamlessly into the whole of the document.

Granted, this gets a little ridiculous when the 21st Amendment repeals the 18th, but still.