Simple English Wikiquote, Translate a quote...? Options

[American Eagle]

As poorly as many editors think of it, Simple English Wikiquote (yes, the wiki that "translates" quotes) has never been this active! With the additions of four administrators in the last three days, things are moving along quite nicely. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

Yay for Simple English Wikiquote!

[carbuncle]

As poorly as many editors think of it, Simple English Wikiquote (yes, the wiki that "translates" quotes) has never been this active! With the additions of four administrators in the last three days, things are moving along quite nicely. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

Yay for Simple English Wikiquote!

I was hoping this was just a joke, but, no, there really is a Simple English Wikiquote, complete with typos on the main page.

At last everyone, even those with minimal English proficiency, can enjoy quotations from the world's greatest minds like Paula Abdul:

* "If they're singing about heartbreak, they've lived it."

Which apparently means:

Simple: If they are singing about being heartbroken, they have sang it (their song) very well.

Wow...

[Milton Roe]

I was hoping this was just a joke, but, no, there really is a Simple English Wikiquote, complete with typos on the main page.

At last everyone, even those with minimal English proficiency, can enjoy quotations from the world's greatest minds...

Wow...

I workered how it would work on some famous stuff. I noticed that some of the greats have long patches of writing which are so simply worded that it hardly needs changing! But that last 10 or 20% that does, is the the zing and and ring and poignance and the poetry. Removing it blandifies it, like being forced to cook without the spice rack. But it makes it a lot clearer for people who have English as a second language, and need a limited vocabulary. In the end, the essentials remain.

An example I tried to construct myself:

==========================

Eighty-seven years ago, our great grandfathers made a new country here on this great land, starting with the idea of freedom, and the new idea that everybody starts out in life equal to everybody else.

Now we are in a huge war between different parts of our country, testing to see if this country, or any country started with freedom and that idea of equal people, will last very long. We are meeting on a big battle field of this war where many dead soldiers are buried. We have come to give speeches to make part of that field a regular graveyard for those who died here, so that their country could live. It is a good thing to do that.

But really, we cannot make this graveyard any more holy than it is. The brave men, living and dead, by fighting here for freedom, have already made it too holy for us to change it.* The world will not notice very much, or even remember for very long, what we say here; but the world can't forget what these brave men did here. It is for us, instead of making new graveyards, to promise to finish the work that these brave men have already gotten so far along with. We promise to finish their great task. From the efforts of these heros, we take greater interest in the work to which they gave the greatest of interests-- more interest than they had for their own lives. We should decide right now, for once and for all, that these men will not have died for nothing. We should promise that this country, with god watching, will have a new fresh start of freedom. Which means that this new idea of a country where the ordinary people, with everyone equal, make all the laws of the country for themselves--- won't disapear for good.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)


I think it's more understandable to the average 12 year-old now.

* n.b. You know, this is very Roman idea. Gladiators battling in front of the the tomb, at the funeral, gave the dead Roman the highest honor. Words were secondary.