I remember being taught in my COBOL class (early 2000s, needed an elective, thought it would be fun) that that was the point.

The stupid engineers could write the code like the grunts they are, and then the manager could read it and verify that it was correct without having to know how a program.

That wasn’t exactly how it was put. And there are obviously some assumptions in they are on how good a job a manager who doesn’t know how to code could ever do.

Certainly an interesting idea though.