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Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

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Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#121

Post by readams »

gregschlom wrote: post #24

Am I the only one to find that using only the 1,000 most common words actually makes thing harder to understand? The writer ends up having to use convoluted paraphrases to refer to things where a precise, well defined and well understood word exists but it's not part of the top 1,000.

I think a much better approach would be to start with the 1000 most common words, but allow defining terms from there. This allows you to develop the correct jargon which will both enhance understanding and allow communication with others about the topic in the future.

Having to continually fall back on silly terms like "up goer" does nothing to enhance understanding when you can define what a rocket is and then just use the word rocket.

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#122

Post by readams »

tormeh wrote: post #110
Tharkun wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's called "thing explainer", but it's more like a "thing convoluter". It's a work humour, not a book of science.

Some of the explanations are actually going into a textbook now, to accompany more traditional text. So it seems professionals disagree with you. I will concede that it might have been clearer with the top 2000 words or something, but that's my perspective and plenty of kids might disagree, especially those that have grown up with weird dialects or even sociolects like AAVE.

No. He's doing some drawings for text books. There is no chance that the thing explainer 1000 words affectation will be adopted for the text book for the purpose of actual teaching.

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#123

Post by manachar »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #42
gregschlom wrote: post #24

Am I the only one to find that using only the 1,000 most common words actually makes thing harder to understand? The writer ends up having to use convoluted paraphrases to refer to things where a precise, well defined and well understood word exists but it's not part of the top 1,000.

The technique is working quite well for Donald Trump: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/15/ho... > Some of his answers last only a few seconds, some are slightly longer, but almost all consist of simple sentences, grammatically and conceptually, and most of them withhold their most important word or phrase until the very end. Trump’s sentences end with a pop, and he seems to know instinctively wh…

I'm with Orwell on this one. Whether by design or "happy" accident, Trump exemplifies the trend for politicians to be vague. Or as he puts it, speaking like this "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#124

Post by cdevs »

The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the pentametric fan. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible trem'e pipe to the differential girdlespring on the 'up' end of the grammeters.

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#125

Post by frandroid »

Munksgaard wrote: post #114
phaedryx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/10/20/donald-t... He does use very simple words.

He has the best words!

If elected, we'll get so many great words, we'll get bored of words!

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#126

Post by briandear »

gertef wrote: post #78
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technique is working quite well for Donald Trump: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/15/ho... > Some of his answers last only a few seconds, some are slightly longer, but almost all consist of simple sentences, grammatically and conceptually, and most of them withhold their most important word or phrase until the very end. Trump’s sentences end with a pop, and he seems to know instinctively wh…

Trump does not limit himself to anything like the most common 1000 worrds

Probably just the top 25.

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#127

Post by CocaKoala »

erelde wrote: post #88
webkike wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to describe anything says nothing about the clarity of the description

While playing the devil's advocate, I could argue that the description using only 0 and 1 is more precise than the phrase "It's a picture of a white cliff on the shore of the sea, possibly in the south of England, in the foreground there's the silhouette of a man or woman to small to distinguish clearly at the bottom of the cliff, the sky above the cliff is bright blue with a few trailing clouds etc etc etc etc etc".…

Let's play a game; I'll describe a scene to you, and you need to make a drawing of the scene based on the description. The closer your drawing is to the scene I'm describing (for some agreeable metric of 'closer'), the more money you win.

Now, do you want me to recite a bunch of ones and zeros? Or would you rather I say, "It's a picture of a white cliff on the shore of the sea, possibly in the south of England; in the foreground there's a person's silhouette, too small to pick out their gender..."?

If, as you say, you could argue that the ones and zeros makes for a more precise description, then obviously you would prefer that option, yes?

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#128

Post by cpeterso »

berns wrote: post #61
tim333 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be handy for non native English speakers though - less to learn.

The very popular Oxford Learner's Dictionary uses a limited vocabulary of 3 500 words for its definitions.

The "Simple English" version of Wikipedia uses the Basic English 2000 and Voice of America's Special English 1500 word list:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#129

Post by cpeterso »

grondilu wrote: post #116

As anyone ever written an artistically worthy novel with only those 1,000 words? Sounds like an interesting lipogram. Also, is there a Vim plugin to do that?

Lucy Aikin was an 19th century author who wrote novels using single-syllable words, including versions of Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Aikin

Re: Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English

#130

Post by cpeterso »

I wrote a simple editor that used Google Translate's web service to round-trip translate the text you enter in real time. I had been thinking about intermediate representations that might assist in the automatic translation of human languages. I wanted to see how one's writing might change to ensure that the round-trip translation was identical or still made sense, thinking this would improve the odds that the translated version actually meant what you intended it to.
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