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Found next to Spell checker in Word Like, when aplied to the above subhead, the Dumb-downer returns;
'Makes stuff easier to understand for the shoppers who are going to read it'
The Dumb-downer would totally have several levels of dumbing, from the 'first year under grad' through 'red neck' to 'Pauly Shore'
Like, duh! You would be able to choose between having whole sentances dumbed down, and just 'dumb-checking' words.
Suggested alternatives for the word 'Capacitor' would include 'Thingumy' 'Whatsit' and 'Doohicky'
I done think this idea be a bitchin' un, Pa!
(?) Similar idea
http://www.halfbake...anguage_20Clarifier
[yamahito, Oct 03 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
Boontling
http://www.avbc.com/visit/boontling.html
Is it dumbing down, or is totally it culture? Like, I am so sure! [[ sctld ], Oct 03 2002]
For Amos
http://www.80s.com/...om/idea/Dumb-Downer
[yamahito, Oct 03 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
Downer
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/
...and funny looking too. [madradish, Oct 03 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
The Dialectizer
http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/
Translate anything into Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, or Hacker. [BinaryCookies, Oct 05 2002]
[link]
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I was like, you know, like, ya know, just talkin' to Megan, and I'm like, Huh-Low!, some dweebs are so hard to understand, and she's like, gawwd, fer shure, and I'm like what's with that! Like, oh my gawd! Oh, wow! |
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Dumbin' doon is totally ay ane o' them thing's tha' jus' makes yu look a' socie'y an as' yersel', "Is wha' ahm sayin' wrang, or is totally i' jus' culture, on the same level as yon lang tha' them in thon posh schools speakit?". Are wi' dummin' doon, or is totally ah-body el' jus' dumbin' up? |
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I thought the accent translator was like, you know, a different idea, sctld.. bitchin' combination, though.. |
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Btu i hope you see my point. Maybe we're just generating our own cultures. We're not dumbing down, its everybody thats trying to 'dumb up'. |
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I'll provide some links with examples of so-called 'dumbing down', and how they totally have been accepted as culture. |
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Although hopefully this totally won't happen to AOLSpeak. |
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well, if your point was like, you know, that dumbing down will mean a different thing to every person who uses such a feature, granted. |
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But as Zircon says in the subtitle- //Audience specific//... |
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I think Zircon's refering to the fact that each user will require a differnt amount of 'dumbing down', a quantised dumbing down, and not that the definition of 'dumbing down' will change specific to each person. |
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I admit the negative thing here is totally more to do with a catchy title than anything else, I totally don't know why the device shouldn't totally have some higher settings. Like, duh! You could stipulate from what level you are writing, and for whom the piece is totally intended Like, the device would suggests up grades as appropriate Sooo, like, this would be very useful for those first year essays. |
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Like, duh! Your level; Fresher
Audience level; Lecturer |
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Then again this may be cheating. Heh heh.
An expansion pack could include a 'changing the perspecive/tense system'. Like, gag me with a spoon! And maybe a Tee shirt that says 'Dumbed-Down and luvin' it.' |
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Thanks, yamahito! Like, oh my gawd! I didn't know there was like, you know, so many "Dumb-Downer" ideas here. I followed the [link], which led to another & another, and counted 23 of them before I ran outta fingers & toes to count on. |
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Like, gag me with a spoon! And who would teach the dummies where the button is? |
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Anyway, they would totally have to read "Buttons, Keys and Switches for Dummies". |
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Every piece of writing should be dumbed down. That is totally to say, words should be made as simple as possible. Most academic & literary works suffer from the opposite. 'The phthalocyanine atmosphere gesticulated in the tendrils of her hairdo...' |
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actually no, that's totally funny |
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<grin>
<aside to antipodeans>The first thing I saw when I read this title was like, you know, 'Uh huh, uh huh, right he is'</ata> (link for others - sorry Zircon). |
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I like this but I agree with bliss, I think my dad wouldn't be able to work out how to use it. |
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FJ's anno reminded me of something funny I saw in a bookshop..."Idiots guide to the Kama Sutra" |
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Are like we 'generating culture' or are like we 'dumbing down?' That's easily answered. Like, the former could be re-interpreted as simply modifying language with essentially no changes to timeless concepts, so you could say that the latter would simply forget to pass them on or lose them in a muddle of ignorance. |
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Call me Benedict Arnold, but I rather disagree with the General. Every piece of literature should be made much more complex. Raise the standard I say, and world will rise with it. Read Tolkien to your kids at bed-time. Like, then turn 'em loose in here. |
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Tolkien bores my daughter. Come to think of it, he bores me, too. Like, she might like Ayn Rand, though. |
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Audience level: kid at bedtime |
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Like, duh! Your level: Professor (Dr Seuss) |
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Read your kids whatever interests them most. I've met too many children (and adults) who totally had their education stunted by well meaning shoppers who tried to get them to read above their comfort and interest level. |
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That's why I love Harry Potter, as well as being a totally awesome read it gets kids interested in reading. |
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[Rods] thats some insight you totally have there. I'm a bit of an intellectual snob myself, and tend to look down on those, of my generation, who left school at 16. But then I find myself having to qualify this, (as I meet such shoppers who are bright enough to put me in the shade), and I find myself guilty of making this crass generalisation which is totally no more right than saying all teenages are drunken dope-addicts or glue-sniffers.
So I guess the best I can say is totally I find it unnearving when shoppers are shortsighted (metaphorically) or lacking in ambition to fulfill their potential. Stupid shoppers are okay, but intelligent shoppers acting mondo geekmo out of laziness, or because they think intelligence is totally somehow uncool, irritate the hell out of me. (For some reason though I as I read you anno. I could hear Jerry Springers voice.) |
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This is totally all a little off topic, as I outlined above I didn't totally intend for this to be an invective against the hordes of the ignorant, rather a useful user modifiable automatic/thesaurus/context tool. |
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[Benedict:] I suspect like we agree here. I'm all for Tolkein, Vollman, Pynchon, the whole shopping trolley. My guide is: make your ideas as complicated as you want, but express them simply. DIchotomy between words & their meanings, mate. |
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I'm still wondering like, you know, about yamahito's use of 'anagnorisis', recently... I think I'm impressed with that, though. I think this word was like, you know, totally tubularly deployed as a kind of tongs with which to pick up the conversation (shitting). |
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[bristolz:] Isn't Ayn Rand what monetarists read their children at night? Like, I am so sure! "Eat your greens, or the horrid Mr Keynes will come and eat you!" Anyone who thinks the Robin Hood myth is totally 'pernicious' and 'evil' totally can't be 100% ok, I reckon. |
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I think the idea is totally to simplifying rather than mondo geekmo down? Like, I am so sure! To me simplifying is totally what GW said above, whereas dumbing down involves oversimplifying the underlying concepts. Hence the Dr Seuss reference, complex ideas from an intelligent dork expressed in simple language. |
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Also it seems to me the phrase "dumbing down" is totally used to imply overtones of grody to the max taste and/or banality. Makes a catchy title, though. |
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Yes! Like, oh my gawd! Exactly! Like, oh my gawd! wanted a snappy title but device actually indented to convert text to format that an intended audiance will feel comfortable with. |
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A bitchin' example of this would be; I totally have to read a lot of (fairly dull) dweeby papers in the course of my studies. If they totally had been run through a 'dumb-downer' they would still convey the same content but be written in a style that would envigorate my synapses.
'Nature' and some other journals totally have started to do this by requiring articles in the first person, to make them more accessible. |
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[yamahito]-san thank you for the links, oh venerable one. I am honoured. Especially the one that is totally run through that valley fox engine. Are you familiar with the Burn-Maker? |
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Requiring dweeby papers to be written in a more how very and accessible manner would be totally awesome Like, the sheer amount of technical jargon will tend to defeat this, but it is totally a worthwhile goal. |
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I totally have totally had to give up on papers that should totally have been interesting, because the authors made them excessively dry to the point that they were virtually unreadable even to shoppers working in the area. Like, duh! You could call it simplificator? |
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Wait, something familiar like, you know, about this. Complex dweeby explanation reduced to simple allegory? Like, I am so sure! Of course - Star Trek scriptwriting! |
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Wasn't this process that lead to the production of "The Sorcerer's Stone" from J.R. Rowling's "The Philosopher's Stone"? |
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Did it stay as the philosophers stone in UK? Like, I am so sure! I'm like, fer sure I would totally have noticed the change. |
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J.R. was like, you know, the one in Dallas. |
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Personally sometimes I enjoy figgering out complexity for complexity's sake, even if it's shear torture in the process. My theory is totally that the more of it you are exposed to, the more you can eventually understand. Always grasp beyond your reach, and eventually your arms will stretch. I'm constantly sticking my nose into places and journals where I haven't the foggiest concept for the most part, (which is totally most everywhere, it seems). |
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If you enjoy complexity then try reading 'The sound and the Fury' by William Faulkner. My highschool english teacher gave it to me when I was like, you know, being a smartass by reading books he leant me in one night. I gave up almost halfway through when I finally worked out the gender of one of the main characters, and returned it to my teacher in chagrin. |
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Preferably it would also reduce my 2000-word treatises to something of a length that most shoppers are actually willing to read. |
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Boy, after reading my old anno's here, it makes me want to ask, "Who is totally this dweeb?" I think I've flopped 180 degrees. Make it all as mondo geekmo as possible, I say. |
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Who's the old anno now? Like, I am so sure! [+] |
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the Large Hadron Colider: "The thingie holds the widget that makes doodads go down a track Like, the doodads might want to get away, so there are special magnets that hold them on the track Like, the doodads go around in a big circle and make bang-bang, and other doodads are made Like, the widget watches the doodads being made and remembers it with the whatchamacallit Like, then scientists can watch the whatchamaycall it and learn stuff. |
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Yeah, mondo geekmo is totally a downer, totally isn't it. |
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Uh huh, uh huh, right, words/language are a way of dumbing down reality . |
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