<story><title>Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English</title><url>https://github.com/mortenjust/cleartext-mac/blob/master/README.md</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AndrewUnmuted</author><text>The technique is working quite well for Donald Trump: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-fix&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;how-trump-speak-has-pushed-the-donald-into-first-place&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-fix&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;ho...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  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.</text></item><item><author>gregschlom</author><text>Am I the only one to find that using only the 1,000 most common words actually makes thing &lt;i&gt;harder&lt;/i&gt; 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&amp;#x27;s not part of the top 1,000.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>manachar</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m with Orwell on this one. Whether by design or &amp;quot;happy&amp;quot; accident, Trump exemplifies the trend for politicians to be vague. Or as he puts it, speaking like this &amp;quot;is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Politics_and_the_English_Language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Politics_and_the_English_Langu...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Cleartext: A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most common words in English</title><url>https://github.com/mortenjust/cleartext-mac/blob/master/README.md</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AndrewUnmuted</author><text>The technique is working quite well for Donald Trump: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-fix&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;how-trump-speak-has-pushed-the-donald-into-first-place&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-fix&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;ho...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  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.</text></item><item><author>gregschlom</author><text>Am I the only one to find that using only the 1,000 most common words actually makes thing &lt;i&gt;harder&lt;/i&gt; 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&amp;#x27;s not part of the top 1,000.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mrrrgn</author><text>I hope that they normalized the data to account for the number of words spoken during each debate, rally, etc... This is important because of Zipf&amp;#x27;s law: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Zipf%27s_law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Zipf%27s_law&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If they didn&amp;#x27;t, the findings are invalid.</text></comment>