> 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 where to put the emphasis in each one.
https://medium.com/@mortenjust/i-doomed-mankind-with-a-free-...
He does use very simple words.
If you're talking about presidents (which is unfair, the type of speech you give as president vs candidate, and debates are different), it's clear that although the trend was downward, for the past few presidents the average level was about 8th grade:
http://www.vocativ.com/interactive/usa/us-politics/president...
Trump speaks at a 4th grade level. Probably intentionally.
If they didn't, the findings are invalid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...
Trump uses political language
political language makes murder respectable
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Trump makes murder respectable
Trump was against the Iraq War, probably the biggest killing event of the last xxx years.
Regardless of politics, Trump has a very idiosyncratic approach to speaking. His mastery of this approach reminds me strongly of the Orwell essay linked above.
I've no desire to debate Trumps policies on HN, but find his approach to speaking quite interesting.
So in a way, yes, he has made murder respectable. The previous two POTUS' made murder respectable by using remote controlled flying bombs.
You don't know what an ad hominem is. Those were called insults, insults are not ad hominems.
> The guy is acknowledged to have won (basically) every republican debate.. would you suggest a child can do that?
Yes actually, a decently intelligent high school child could win against that pack of dim bulbs. Republican debates are a joke won by whichever person throws enough red meat to the crowd and insults the other guy the best; they're an embarrassment to even watch.
But to compare him to a four year old then make a sweeping statement like "isn't that bright" ?
How could anyone think this? Isn't it obvious that there are domains in which he is, for better or worse, exceptionally intelligent within that domain?
> Isn't it obvious that there are domains in which he is, for better or worse, exceptionally intelligent within that domain?
No, it isn't. He's rich because daddy was rich, without that leg up he'd be living in a trailer park slobbering on himself.
It's actually a sign of intelligence to use the simplest language necessary when expressing yourself to a broad audience (many with low education). People who use unnecessarily large words are usually doing it to try to sound smarter than they are and to build up their own egos.
The purpose of a dictionary is to aid you in understanding the meaning any English speaker or writer is trying to convey independent of the time period or location, not to dictate valid and invalid words. Some words might be dropped from abridged dictionaries when they fall out of popularity but in 'The English Dictionary' (which doesn't really exist but is approximated by dictionaries like Oxford's) words are added but never removed.
This is different, than say, the mission of L'Académie française which is to act as a language regulator and maintain the official vocabulary and grammar of French.
Sesquiedalian seems to have been popping up since the 1600s.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/176752?redirectedFrom=sesquipe...
I'm an independent that lives in NYC. My vote is always a throw away vote.
Not so much about what they wanted to do in the future. They didn't stand for elections.
What a lot of smart people don't understand though, is that in politics, not trying to solve problems, but trying to appeal to people is the goal. And you don't use the same tools at all for that.
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.
It'd be absolutely awesome if these lexicon files evolved organically and were public over time to graph how language progresses...
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If you want to make new things for a computer, you first have to write them down in a way that a computer can understand. You have to use strange computer words, not normal human words. People usually only talk to other people, so talking to a computer using only computer words is very hard.
To make it easier, there are things that take human words and then write them out as computer words so you don't have to do it yourself.
Those things were made by people who went to school for a long time. To make them, they had to know all the human words and all the computer words too. Thanks to them, you can write stuff that feels pretty normal to you, and still be able to make new things for a computer. It's still a little bit hard, but you can learn the simple stuff in a few days.
A long time ago, only a few people could build new things for computers. But today, many people like you and me build them for money or just for fun on their free time.
Just imagine: you could build a whole new thing today. A thing that no one ever had before. And if the thing you build actually helps other people, you can get a lot of money for it. That's what many of us in the "Thing Building News" place do. We go there to share stories about the things we build.
I now want to thank the people who went to school for a long time and made the things that turn human words into computer words. They help us do easy and fun stuff for money.
The first compiler took someone with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from Vasser, a master's from Yale and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale and 3 years of experience with the machine.
And even then :
"Nobody believed that," she said. "I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic."
But we're not really talking about the description of a picture, we're in fact talking about political discourse.
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?
You're right, you can be more precise that way, but precise text means nothing if nobody is reading it.
To paraphrase and copy-edit your perceptive comment. (The subject made me do it).
Writing is the problem of communicating ideas, and doing to to a sufficiently prepared audience, effectively.
The problem with stunts such as this -- and there are others, the "if you stop writing for 5 seconds your text starts disappearing" demo a few weeks back comes to mind -- is that they confuse the medium with the message.
Yes, it's possible to have confusing writing on account of unfamiliar terminology. That's a frequent problem with many Wikipedia articles, or much academic writing of the past few decades (older works -- say, 1950 and prior, to the 18th or even 17th century -- are often far clearer).
But the problem most often isn't just the vocabulary, it's the structure of the writing. Pop open a book of Darwin or Adam Smith (I've been reading both) and turn to a random page. Once you get over a slight old fashionedness of the writing, the thoughts are clear.
It is impossible to tell a narrative clearly if you've not organised your own thinking about it.
I've been doing a lot of thinking ... well, about a lot of things. One of those topics is of data and narrative, and the difference between a dry factual presentation (say, a data table, or a simple list of events) and a story which weaves these into a consistent whole. Our minds typically work very well with narrative, sometimes too well, as false narratives can be constructed. But the best presentations I've encountered include both solid facts and a story which ties them together. Finding an author who does this well and with skill is truly impressive.
And the good ones expand your vocabulary. Another point, and one to keep in mind.
There's also Einstein's dictum: make things as simple as possible, but no simpler. The same applies to language.
So yes, it sounds like using the most common 1K words would aid readability but you probably need to raise that to 2.5K or more. Low enough to avoid the use of complex words while also freeing the author from awkward phrasings.
An average 4 year old in extreme poverty or public care has 10M words directed at him. A 4 year old with professional parents hears 50M. That's a key differentiator that drives future potential.
Many people lack sophisticated literacy for a variety of reasons. When Honda opened a factory in Alabama, they changed written assembly instructions into pictograms due to the poor literacy level. In aviation, documentation is written in "simplified technical English" to assist non-native English speakers.
This is more of an XKCD fan boy project. So let's look at a famous XKCD comic using this, "US Space Team's Up Goer Five". "US Space Team" barely makes sense, does more to obscure than illuminate, and "Up Goer Five" makes no sense at all.
Unless you meant all children are stupid....
First off, there are many dimensions to reading new languages. Nobody is saying "learn 1000 words of English and you're done for life". Rather, achieve fluency in a subset, then work on becoming more idiomatic. If you're lost somewhere and need help, nobody cares that you sound like a stupid child. (They probably won't notice, though. I've found through learning other languages that rare words are actually very rare and of extremely limited use. Obviously if someone uses it and you don't know it, you're stuck. But you can get by without it.)
US Space Team tells you what NASA does. NASA on its own tells you nothing about what they do, for all you know it could be the National Agricultural Sabotage Administration, and their goal is to blow up farms.
You have to separate language out into the multiple dimensions that it encompasses in order to understand certain aspects. It's clear to me that you use language as a social signalling method, "that person doesn't know what NASA is, hah, they're dumb and I won't associate with them as a result." That's fine, but there is another aspect: explaining ideas. And that can be done with less than the full set of all English words.
I welcome simplified English in every shape or form, from limiting words to changing spellings and streamline it. Its no more language of people from England, every one in the world has stake in it. English reformation is long over due.
Some people insert heavy hitter words into their speech in order to sound more intelligent. It comes across as unnatural and awkward, though.
But people who have acquired large vocabularies organically, by being around people who talk that way or by reading a lot, use it naturally and unthinkingly. And then there are authors and such who use language like a painter uses color. English is a very rich language, and if you want to paint a rich scene with words, there is quite a palette to choose from. Would you tell a painter he can only use primary colors?
Great idea, needs more words. It's too extreme.
In the case of this editor, it may actually be useful to some if `N` were configurable, and maybe exceptions could be added. (If you're writing an OS X user guide say, you want to be able to write 'OS X'!)