This sounds like a very bizarre strawman version of what the parent is saying. No, obviously the desire is not to write code like one writes natural language.

This sounds like a very bizarre strawman version of what the parent is saying. No, obviously the desire is not to write code like one writes natural language. But ease of reading is an extremely important quality to have in programming languages. Programmers read code way more often than they write it, and them being able to make sense of it is crucial.