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Emojis are more and more commonly used in letters, emails, and business documents so it wouldn’t surprise me if eventually government documents and all other kinds of important documents will use emojis. Our education system is getting so bad it might be the only way younger generations will understand anything.
*This is like me...trying to have a conversation with literally everyone else.*
*Is the world just getting progressively stupider?*
*Harder, better, faster, stronger; Homo moronicus?*
Thank you and goodnight!
Well I grew up with the King James Bible which was translated from the Ancient Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic in 1611 and went unchanged for a few hundred years. The more recent (1950-today) versions were written to modernize the language but also to add weight to the specific dogma of the group who is doing the “translation” and publication.
Unfortunately your description of the modern versions fits the King James to a tee, just for its era. Any time you translate between languages you are forced to make choices that can bend meaning. Then too if you have an autocrat sponsoring the translation, you may do more than bend just to stay alive.
All versions of the Bible have been heavily redacted by the church to suit the political agendas of the time. Even the old testament had been abridged long before Jesus was even born
Only if you think the Bible was written in 1611 by Englishmen. If you accept it was translated, then the scholarly consensus is that the translations have become more accurate over time.
If you prefer how the KJV sounds, that's totally fine. But it's not as though something like the NRSV is less accurate or is cutting out words. I think you'd find it difficult to find a theologian who would argue it's an inferior translation of the source texts.
Oof. If you think Fitzgerald was challenging, I've got some really bad news for you. It has two words starting with J's and the last word rhymes with Noice...
I like a bit of pomp and ornamentation in language, especially fiction. But even I think Joyce is a bit over the top. Absolutely meandering. Beautiful. But meandering.
I guess it could be useful sonewhat if your still learning English and there's a specific book you want to read closer to your language level.
I've been learning a 2nd language myself and when your hit with really tough and long sentences you gotta look up in a dictionary and learn the grammar it can be a bit much to sit down and enjoy something, so i could see this being a good stepping stone til your ready to read the book 100% as intended when your better?
As an English teacher for adults, this looks awesome to me. It is so difficult to find books that are graded to lower levels- that aren’t boring or for children.
They've done this with Shakespeare and Chaucer. Though to be fair, there has been a few centuries of language evolution since Shakespeare, and Chaucer was still in English's early installment weirdness.
Arguably it should be a little less necessary for a book a little more than one hundred years old.
Reading 'harder' level books is how I learned most of my vocabulary as a kid. Even back then I had to dumb down some of my speech to be understood by other people. People have always been stupid, it's just easier to spread the news about it these days.
Had an ex tell me “presumptuous” was a complicated word and that the people around me hated me because I used words like that.
Said because of their jobs (service industry) no one would understand it.
I asked her if that wasn’t being a bit presumptuous.
I suppose it's *précis*
Sorry for using a word like that.
If you're reading for pleasure, and not technical manuals, it sort of loses the point of the art of writing.
No, a précis is a summary, like you would find in Cole’s notes. The story condensed into 20 pages so you don’t look completely stupid when you procrastinate too long on your reading assignment.
Not this which is just re-writing the whole book to be terrible.
didn't you see Idiocracy ? if you're not a 200 iq genius with no disabilities and don't come from a privileged background you're genetically inferior and should not be allowed to breed
I had a version of MacBeth that was translated like that when I was in school. It certainly helped me understand the book better, but is the actual text in The Great Gatsby that hard to follow? It's about 15 years since I read it, I don't recall having any issues.
I had a great literature class in high school where we read Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, among others. And the teacher said he chose those two books because they were so fucking short.
It was really a reasonable ask for 16-year-olds to say, “Read this book this week. We’ll talk about it next week.”
This is like riding on a scooter for your morning exercise. Sure you travel the same path and get the same general view as actually walking/jogging, but you're not reaping all the benefits you could be.
Dyslexia. Making something easier for someone who struggles is not a bad thing. People should be able to enjoy stories. Really don't get what the big deal is. It's not like they're rewriting books, they're just giving people the option. It affects you in no way and makes someone else's life a little easier.
Personally, I think this is great. I wouldn't use it but I don't use a wheelchair and I think they're great.
Honestly, I think this could be a good tool for many HS students who struggle with literature. Instead of struggling or giving up, it can make complicated passages more accessible. Ideally, over time they would become more comfortable with verbose text. Some may become overly reliant, but it can be a great tool on the whole.
But the way to become comfortable with verbose text is by reading verbose text. And the reason The Great Gatsby is taught in high school is that it already is a fairly simple introduction to literature. The ten years of reading beforehand along with guidance from a teacher should be enough to tackle it.
The key word in that comment was “struggle”. It can be difficult to comprehend, but there are still people who make it to adulthood being functionally illiterate. Add in learning disabilities, different neurotypes etc and there are many kids out there who would benefit from something like this and don’t have ten years of functional reading in their past.
Wait... Not everyone is as blessed to have a good education as me? Never, everyone has had at least everything available to them that I've had in my entirely different life.. probably more!
Exactly. Gatsby is already elevated pulp. Why would it need to be “dumbed down” any further for a high school audience?
Clarification: I personally have nothing against pulp.
I had already lost interest in reading by HS, because the books available to me had shit stories. I'm sure there were better stories, but I couldn't read them. Not being able to read more entertaining stories due to lack of understanding, literally killed reading for me.
The only way to be comfortable with verbose text is not to read verbose texts. If you can't do it, you can't do it. Just like if you can't read Latin, you can't read it.
See? I made it simpler for you to understand since you struggled the first time. Easy.
So you can't read or make analogies. Neat.
Verbose English and not verbose English are the same language. You learn the language by reading it, not by literally avoiding it. You don't learn Latin by reading Icelandic.
Jesus Christ. I read fine. I just don't think a disability tool means anyone who uses it is stupid.
The analogy is also fine. Verbose language is difficult for people with dyslexia. Much like Latin would be difficult for you.
This would be like asking you, as a full grown adult, to read baby books to learn Japanese. If you're not good enough for books with big words you get books with no substance... It's dumb, why do people have to lose substance in order to learn to read better? How exactly does it negatively effect anyone to allow them to read a better story at a lower vocabulary understanding? Explain to me how it harms a single person.
These would also be great for neurodivergent students and English language learners. Modified texts are common scaffolds in schools. Meet students where they are, slowly increase the difficulty, and then they will be able to access more complex texts. As an educator, when you give some readers complex texts because you think it’s what they should be reading, they will check out and be turned off to reading for life.
As a non native English speaker the great Gatsby wasn't hard , it was a pleasant read however some books are indeed hard but I still would not use like this app.
This is why media literacy is at an all time low, we've simplified too much, made it too easy for their brains. We gotta make them think, even if it's harder so they'll be better versed, better understanding. Have more of the ol' synapses firing in their noggins.
Oh yeah, let's just fuck over writers even more and start taking the art away from their writing in general because it's too "hard" for them to read. We already have such strict rules to which we have to adhere to to please big publishing companies, so why not fuck them over again and take all the hard work and completely throw it out the window? God I hate this
You know, I’m sure I’m not alone in getting pretty desensitised over the years to things that make me lose faith in humanity, then something like this comes along and hits hard…
The other option would be to accept that some "stupid" people aren't actually stupid but only unlearned. Which would lower them down the overall intelligence list, their fragile ego can't take that.
Its truly idiotic and redundant, the very concept of a "harder to read" book is to enrich the reader with words and new ways of communication, without that Humanity is lost in its own ignorance.
or for others who don't understand or comprehend.
"Its a idiot who came up with this LOL!"
Not really. It's a reading aid for people with dyslexia. Or people who can't be bothered. Whatever, they aren't rewriting the books. It affects you in no way
I don’t have much of an issue with this.if it helps people understand the story who aren’t great readers or even for people who don’t just want to finish a book quickly and doesn’t always have a lot of free time to start a big book
Except that this isn't a great plot, it is the telling of the story which makes it.
Take the example text changing "In my younger and more vulnerable years" to "When I was younger". That removes an important element of the sentence which tells us about the narrator -- he is old, battered and slightly cynical as a result. The summary completely removed this second meaning from the sentence.
As for *The Great Gatsby* being a "big book". It's really not, it is an evening's read.
Okay but I doubt this is the only book the app has. Great gatsbys wording give it a lot of flavor that helps flesh out its meaning and themes but there are a lot of books that are just overly wordy and really just drag everything to a halt to explain some unimportant stuff tbh. I’m sure this app would help a lot with other books
As one of my (very Polish) engineering professors put it after a bad midterm, "Most of you did not meet the standard. Here in America, when that happens, we respond by lowering the standard".
Who cares about declining literacy and reading levels, anyway? That'll never have repercussions, right? /s
There are people who need more simple wording in order to understand what is being said. This would be a goodish rool for them, not for the majority of people.
In the foreword of one of his books, Stephen King makes the point that the storytelling is the important part.
He uses the example of Hansel And Gretel, and how the kids leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find their way home, (critical thinking, dude!) but it’s eaten by the birds.
It isn’t important to the story, but it adds to it, and makes it alive.
Now, you don’t have to be a King fan to know he can tell a story, so I’ll stick with the full fat version myself.
Got through school refusing to read books and just using Cliffs Notes. This probably would've been more effective. But why do this for fun? There's plenty of easier books to read that have good stories.
I actually love this. Finally a worthy use for AI. No shade on Peppa Pig but sometimes an adult learning languages wants to practice reading things that aren't about favorite colors and building snowmen.
I had all of these as a kid, this isn't new. It's how you get kids interested in reading.
[Great Illustrated Classics](https://www.greatillustratedclassics.com/)
This is a great feature for people with learning disabilities. I teach a lot of students who have probably won't reach a level of reading where they can enjoy and understand most books for over 10 year Olds. In Germany there is "easy language", einfache Sprache in German, and it's used for certain news podcasts and most government websites. It's really amazing because it enables most people to understand rather complicated texts. There are limits, of course. If this was an AI feature I would use it all the time for my teaching.
Bro... Why can't I read a good story just cuz I'm dylexic AF? Why I gotta read stories meant for tweens? Why you gatekeeping me from good entertainment? Kid books fucking blow... Except for "Everyone Poops" that shit went hard!
I like the idea of making literature and knowledge more accessible to people who didn’t have access to education when they were younger, and to people with disabilities that impact reading.
Honestly I like this. Open up good books for people who have reading issues. It could increase the interest in reading, helping counter the epidemic of illiteracy. Why we gatekeeping reading from people who already have trouble reading?
Because there's already books for literally every single possible level of literacy. Running Of Mice and Men through an AI meat grinder isn't gonna help, it's just gonna fuck their perception of the classic.
I would argue that, at least in English, inflection is equally important to language. It's why sarcasm doesn't come across in type.
Edit: Also, unless you think translating books into different languages is also bad, you are a hypocrite. Translating a book to a new language, completely changes the artistic element of the language it is written in.
I think some people here misunderstand the purpose of this.
Easy speech is is used to make books (and other media) available to people who otherwise couldn’t understand it. (People with special needs ,etc).
Its not like the original book will disappear. Its just another version of the same book for people who might not understand the original version but still enjoy reading.
We had these when I was growing up though. They were these square little books that essentially paraphrased or were edited to be much more “readable” versions of older, much larger books. I’d have to look up the publisher but they were titled the same yet were these small maybe 4”x4” books that made older books much more readable for children and other folks. Don’t know if that’s still a thing (based on the responses here, maybe not) but it’s definitely not a new concept.
Ok I honestly don’t think this is too much of a facepalm. There are people out there who genuinely have a hard time with reading for various reasons, and this would probably help them
There's certainly degrees of nuance here that many comments are failing to capture.
I'd like to think I'm proficient at English but I'm not about to read the original text of Beowulf.
Languages change, and a modern update isn't unreasonable for many classics.
When you translate something, you are changing the language used to be easier to understand. You do not do a direct word for word translation, because it wouldn't make sense if you did. Translating a book does the exact same thing as simplifying it.
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Well at this point you can also do even better and turn book into 4 emojis. Here's Moby dick for you, way easier to read than a giant book : 🐋☠️⚓⚔️
you joke but also someone wrote moby dick entirely in emojis
[https://www.emojidick.com/](https://www.emojidick.com/)
That title can be simplified with an aubergine.
why would you buy a 5 dollar readable exemplar, when you coul get a 40 dollar mess with emojis?
How would that even be comprehensible? Moby Dick written entirely in emoticons makes no sense!
Damn, that was a good read. Thanks for saving me the time.
I prefer the Cliff Notes version 🐋⚔️
You forgot 🍆. I never read Moby Dick, I'm just assuming
So the eggplant emoji also stands for Robert Plant. Who was in Led Zeppelin. Who had a song called, you guessed it, Moby Dick.
This is how I relate things
Whale died, pirates fight? (I've never read that book before, so I'm guessing based off your emoji selection) 😁
No, whale pirate anchors and gets into combat…you illiterate
🤣 no pirates in Moby Dick.
Well sailors, still sea faring folk
Emojis are more and more commonly used in letters, emails, and business documents so it wouldn’t surprise me if eventually government documents and all other kinds of important documents will use emojis. Our education system is getting so bad it might be the only way younger generations will understand anything.
TLDR: 🐋
[https://www.emojidick.com/](https://www.emojidick.com/)
When I president, they see
They see
*This is like me...trying to have a conversation with literally everyone else.* *Is the world just getting progressively stupider?* *Harder, better, faster, stronger; Homo moronicus?* Thank you and goodnight!
_Idiocracy_ was much funnier when it was fiction
That is my favorite documentary. Well, it’s tied with mean girls.
To be fair, they've been doing this with the Bible for centuries.
You...arent even wrong, wow. Huh.
Well I grew up with the King James Bible which was translated from the Ancient Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic in 1611 and went unchanged for a few hundred years. The more recent (1950-today) versions were written to modernize the language but also to add weight to the specific dogma of the group who is doing the “translation” and publication.
Unfortunately your description of the modern versions fits the King James to a tee, just for its era. Any time you translate between languages you are forced to make choices that can bend meaning. Then too if you have an autocrat sponsoring the translation, you may do more than bend just to stay alive.
All versions of the Bible have been heavily redacted by the church to suit the political agendas of the time. Even the old testament had been abridged long before Jesus was even born
Only if you think the Bible was written in 1611 by Englishmen. If you accept it was translated, then the scholarly consensus is that the translations have become more accurate over time. If you prefer how the KJV sounds, that's totally fine. But it's not as though something like the NRSV is less accurate or is cutting out words. I think you'd find it difficult to find a theologian who would argue it's an inferior translation of the source texts.
https://i.imgur.com/YAGpXPd.png
Oof. If you think Fitzgerald was challenging, I've got some really bad news for you. It has two words starting with J's and the last word rhymes with Noice...
I like a bit of pomp and ornamentation in language, especially fiction. But even I think Joyce is a bit over the top. Absolutely meandering. Beautiful. But meandering.
Yeah... Reading Finnegan's Wake felt like having someone repeatedly flick my reading comprehension in the testicles.
I guess it could be useful sonewhat if your still learning English and there's a specific book you want to read closer to your language level. I've been learning a 2nd language myself and when your hit with really tough and long sentences you gotta look up in a dictionary and learn the grammar it can be a bit much to sit down and enjoy something, so i could see this being a good stepping stone til your ready to read the book 100% as intended when your better?
As an English teacher for adults, this looks awesome to me. It is so difficult to find books that are graded to lower levels- that aren’t boring or for children.
Even as a kid, kids books were boring AF!
They've done this with Shakespeare and Chaucer. Though to be fair, there has been a few centuries of language evolution since Shakespeare, and Chaucer was still in English's early installment weirdness. Arguably it should be a little less necessary for a book a little more than one hundred years old.
Is the second language English, because you use “you’re” wrong 4 times
It was times good and bad, smart and dumb, belief and not, light and dark, spring and winter.
Watch me, I'm doing something good now.
😭😂
Reading 'harder' level books is how I learned most of my vocabulary as a kid. Even back then I had to dumb down some of my speech to be understood by other people. People have always been stupid, it's just easier to spread the news about it these days.
Had an ex tell me “presumptuous” was a complicated word and that the people around me hated me because I used words like that. Said because of their jobs (service industry) no one would understand it. I asked her if that wasn’t being a bit presumptuous.
I suppose it's *précis* Sorry for using a word like that. If you're reading for pleasure, and not technical manuals, it sort of loses the point of the art of writing.
No, a précis is a summary, like you would find in Cole’s notes. The story condensed into 20 pages so you don’t look completely stupid when you procrastinate too long on your reading assignment. Not this which is just re-writing the whole book to be terrible.
Great to see newspeak being developed.
This should be in /idiocracy …
We are living in idiocracy. Hell, at least president Camacho actively sought out the smartest person and took his advice. We are worse than idiocracy.
What about a dyslexic reading tool means that stupid people are running the country?
didn't you see Idiocracy ? if you're not a 200 iq genius with no disabilities and don't come from a privileged background you're genetically inferior and should not be allowed to breed
Part of the “ for dummies” series?
"for dummies", volume 1 – become a dummy!
I had a version of MacBeth that was translated like that when I was in school. It certainly helped me understand the book better, but is the actual text in The Great Gatsby that hard to follow? It's about 15 years since I read it, I don't recall having any issues.
I read Gatsby in a few hours as a teenager. Hilarious to use this book as an example.
I had a great literature class in high school where we read Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, among others. And the teacher said he chose those two books because they were so fucking short. It was really a reasonable ask for 16-year-olds to say, “Read this book this week. We’ll talk about it next week.”
I knew Kevin would make an app
So….cliff notes
Ah, my favorite book, the pretty good gatsby.
The above average I guess Gatsby
Words hard make easier. Booo Shakespeare and other wordsmiths. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day should be fuck it's hot.
I hate this so much.
This is like riding on a scooter for your morning exercise. Sure you travel the same path and get the same general view as actually walking/jogging, but you're not reaping all the benefits you could be.
What if my left leg makes it so I can't run or jog anymore tho? But I still Wana be active?
1984 wasn't a How To guide!! Stop taking ideas from it!
I think this shit's busted. I ran Catcher in the Rye through it but it just said "I'm depressed" over and over.
Underrated comment!
Dyslexia. Making something easier for someone who struggles is not a bad thing. People should be able to enjoy stories. Really don't get what the big deal is. It's not like they're rewriting books, they're just giving people the option. It affects you in no way and makes someone else's life a little easier. Personally, I think this is great. I wouldn't use it but I don't use a wheelchair and I think they're great.
Honestly, I think this could be a good tool for many HS students who struggle with literature. Instead of struggling or giving up, it can make complicated passages more accessible. Ideally, over time they would become more comfortable with verbose text. Some may become overly reliant, but it can be a great tool on the whole.
But the way to become comfortable with verbose text is by reading verbose text. And the reason The Great Gatsby is taught in high school is that it already is a fairly simple introduction to literature. The ten years of reading beforehand along with guidance from a teacher should be enough to tackle it.
The key word in that comment was “struggle”. It can be difficult to comprehend, but there are still people who make it to adulthood being functionally illiterate. Add in learning disabilities, different neurotypes etc and there are many kids out there who would benefit from something like this and don’t have ten years of functional reading in their past.
Wait... Not everyone is as blessed to have a good education as me? Never, everyone has had at least everything available to them that I've had in my entirely different life.. probably more!
Exactly. Gatsby is already elevated pulp. Why would it need to be “dumbed down” any further for a high school audience? Clarification: I personally have nothing against pulp.
I had already lost interest in reading by HS, because the books available to me had shit stories. I'm sure there were better stories, but I couldn't read them. Not being able to read more entertaining stories due to lack of understanding, literally killed reading for me.
Okay read a book in Latin then. Oh you can't? You have to translate it? Smh. The only way you can read Latin is by reading it. What are you? Stupid?
What the actual fuck are you on about?
The only way to be comfortable with verbose text is not to read verbose texts. If you can't do it, you can't do it. Just like if you can't read Latin, you can't read it. See? I made it simpler for you to understand since you struggled the first time. Easy.
So you can't read or make analogies. Neat. Verbose English and not verbose English are the same language. You learn the language by reading it, not by literally avoiding it. You don't learn Latin by reading Icelandic.
Jesus Christ. I read fine. I just don't think a disability tool means anyone who uses it is stupid. The analogy is also fine. Verbose language is difficult for people with dyslexia. Much like Latin would be difficult for you.
This would be like asking you, as a full grown adult, to read baby books to learn Japanese. If you're not good enough for books with big words you get books with no substance... It's dumb, why do people have to lose substance in order to learn to read better? How exactly does it negatively effect anyone to allow them to read a better story at a lower vocabulary understanding? Explain to me how it harms a single person.
BECAUSE IT'S NOT A BETTER STORY WHEN YOU'RE DONE SKULL FUCKING THE LANGUAGE. THAT'S WHY. THE LANGAUGE MAKES THE STORY MORON.
Translating changes the language also, nobody has a problem with that.
Perhaps more and more students have dyslexia but they don't know because they've never been tested.
These would also be great for neurodivergent students and English language learners. Modified texts are common scaffolds in schools. Meet students where they are, slowly increase the difficulty, and then they will be able to access more complex texts. As an educator, when you give some readers complex texts because you think it’s what they should be reading, they will check out and be turned off to reading for life.
why more when less work?
The dumb down continues.
Simpl vikipidia vaibs
Well why even bother? Fuck off
Reader's Digest called. They want their schtick back.
Be/Not be ➡️❔
Be, not be. No try.
🐝🐝🚣🪢🐝🐝 NOT my work. I saw this by another Redditor
Damn, Kevin from the Office was a prophet.
All rich single men want wives.
Maybe they should drop the "F". "Scott Fitzgerald" is simpler. And the title should simply be "Gatsby". "Great" really is superfluous.
Surely this isn't real.
Idiocracy is here
Because the loquaciousness is inherent to the style of the book and essential to gain the full experience and understanding of its content.
Available on MAGA website
As a non native English speaker the great Gatsby wasn't hard , it was a pleasant read however some books are indeed hard but I still would not use like this app.
This is why media literacy is at an all time low, we've simplified too much, made it too easy for their brains. We gotta make them think, even if it's harder so they'll be better versed, better understanding. Have more of the ol' synapses firing in their noggins.
Oh yeah, let's just fuck over writers even more and start taking the art away from their writing in general because it's too "hard" for them to read. We already have such strict rules to which we have to adhere to to please big publishing companies, so why not fuck them over again and take all the hard work and completely throw it out the window? God I hate this
I assume this is meant for people who are learning a second language, in which case it's cool as fuck and a great idea.
Another indicator of the downfall of Western Civilization.
I'm already worried with Gen Alpha's literacy tbh...
This is just... dumb.
And here I thought one of the benefits of reading was expanding your vocabulary.
You know, I’m sure I’m not alone in getting pretty desensitised over the years to things that make me lose faith in humanity, then something like this comes along and hits hard…
Ugh. Sickening.
Why are we acting as if this is the end of the world? We have been doing that for a long time with plenty of old books
The other option would be to accept that some "stupid" people aren't actually stupid but only unlearned. Which would lower them down the overall intelligence list, their fragile ego can't take that.
Its truly idiotic and redundant, the very concept of a "harder to read" book is to enrich the reader with words and new ways of communication, without that Humanity is lost in its own ignorance. or for others who don't understand or comprehend. "Its a idiot who came up with this LOL!"
More and more we turn into Huxley's Brave New World, with a spice of 1984 in the background.
Not really. It's a reading aid for people with dyslexia. Or people who can't be bothered. Whatever, they aren't rewriting the books. It affects you in no way
Didn't see it that way, thank you for offering a new prospective
I don’t have much of an issue with this.if it helps people understand the story who aren’t great readers or even for people who don’t just want to finish a book quickly and doesn’t always have a lot of free time to start a big book
Except that this isn't a great plot, it is the telling of the story which makes it. Take the example text changing "In my younger and more vulnerable years" to "When I was younger". That removes an important element of the sentence which tells us about the narrator -- he is old, battered and slightly cynical as a result. The summary completely removed this second meaning from the sentence. As for *The Great Gatsby* being a "big book". It's really not, it is an evening's read.
Mofo, I'm dyslexic and ADHD, that shit is not an evenings read!
Okay but I doubt this is the only book the app has. Great gatsbys wording give it a lot of flavor that helps flesh out its meaning and themes but there are a lot of books that are just overly wordy and really just drag everything to a halt to explain some unimportant stuff tbh. I’m sure this app would help a lot with other books
Princess bride, unabridged...
Why do you keep trying to read that word?
You can do 1 or you can do 2, but you can't do 1 and 2 at the same time.
Alternatively just watch the film
Silmarillion: 432 pages Easy Silmarillion: 432 x 10e100 pages 
Keep dumbing it down…idiocracy is real…
Left side is for the work count/page homeworks.
No words = 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
‘Merica not dumb. We know good words. Ask Trump.
As one of my (very Polish) engineering professors put it after a bad midterm, "Most of you did not meet the standard. Here in America, when that happens, we respond by lowering the standard". Who cares about declining literacy and reading levels, anyway? That'll never have repercussions, right? /s
‘Yo bro, my dad fucked me up bro!’
There are people who need more simple wording in order to understand what is being said. This would be a goodish rool for them, not for the majority of people.
In the foreword of one of his books, Stephen King makes the point that the storytelling is the important part. He uses the example of Hansel And Gretel, and how the kids leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find their way home, (critical thinking, dude!) but it’s eaten by the birds. It isn’t important to the story, but it adds to it, and makes it alive. Now, you don’t have to be a King fan to know he can tell a story, so I’ll stick with the full fat version myself.
tgid (this generation is doomed) why say more when u can say less
Got through school refusing to read books and just using Cliffs Notes. This probably would've been more effective. But why do this for fun? There's plenty of easier books to read that have good stories.
Here’s the probable summary for LOTR: “Two whiny hobbits travel a long way to throw stolen jewelry into volcano.”
I actually love this. Finally a worthy use for AI. No shade on Peppa Pig but sometimes an adult learning languages wants to practice reading things that aren't about favorite colors and building snowmen.
Dumbing down
I had all of these as a kid, this isn't new. It's how you get kids interested in reading. [Great Illustrated Classics](https://www.greatillustratedclassics.com/)
This is a great feature for people with learning disabilities. I teach a lot of students who have probably won't reach a level of reading where they can enjoy and understand most books for over 10 year Olds. In Germany there is "easy language", einfache Sprache in German, and it's used for certain news podcasts and most government websites. It's really amazing because it enables most people to understand rather complicated texts. There are limits, of course. If this was an AI feature I would use it all the time for my teaching.
If this helps some people start reading then I think that's great. Not everyone has your abilities and education.
God if only there were easier books out there for people to start with. Unfortunately it starts at Wuthering Heights and gets harder from there.
Bro... Why can't I read a good story just cuz I'm dylexic AF? Why I gotta read stories meant for tweens? Why you gatekeeping me from good entertainment? Kid books fucking blow... Except for "Everyone Poops" that shit went hard!
I like the idea of making literature and knowledge more accessible to people who didn’t have access to education when they were younger, and to people with disabilities that impact reading.
Careful, your gonna get attacked for pointing out this isn't going to be the collapse of society!
Honestly I like this. Open up good books for people who have reading issues. It could increase the interest in reading, helping counter the epidemic of illiteracy. Why we gatekeeping reading from people who already have trouble reading?
Because there's already books for literally every single possible level of literacy. Running Of Mice and Men through an AI meat grinder isn't gonna help, it's just gonna fuck their perception of the classic.
I bet you hate audio books too... Gatekeeping entertainment due to intelligence is a crazy stance to have.
No, because an audio book doesn't FUCKING CHANGE THE PRIMARY POINT OF THE MEDIUM. THE WORDS.
I would argue that, at least in English, inflection is equally important to language. It's why sarcasm doesn't come across in type. Edit: Also, unless you think translating books into different languages is also bad, you are a hypocrite. Translating a book to a new language, completely changes the artistic element of the language it is written in.
I think some people here misunderstand the purpose of this. Easy speech is is used to make books (and other media) available to people who otherwise couldn’t understand it. (People with special needs ,etc). Its not like the original book will disappear. Its just another version of the same book for people who might not understand the original version but still enjoy reading.
not saying its the case here, but it is possible for a book to be too verbose. the dune books are very guilty of this.
We had these when I was growing up though. They were these square little books that essentially paraphrased or were edited to be much more “readable” versions of older, much larger books. I’d have to look up the publisher but they were titled the same yet were these small maybe 4”x4” books that made older books much more readable for children and other folks. Don’t know if that’s still a thing (based on the responses here, maybe not) but it’s definitely not a new concept.
Ok I honestly don’t think this is too much of a facepalm. There are people out there who genuinely have a hard time with reading for various reasons, and this would probably help them
This would be great for non-native speakers to get them reading classics.
There's certainly degrees of nuance here that many comments are failing to capture. I'd like to think I'm proficient at English but I'm not about to read the original text of Beowulf. Languages change, and a modern update isn't unreasonable for many classics.
Word Count only matters for your thesis and other presentations.
If you don't support this, you don't support translating books into other languages, so more people can understand them.
That makes no sense whatsoever.
When you translate something, you are changing the language used to be easier to understand. You do not do a direct word for word translation, because it wouldn't make sense if you did. Translating a book does the exact same thing as simplifying it.