Plain English

By Jeremy Singer-Vine

Aug. 24, 2010

Every field has its own jargon that's meaningless to everyone else. Sometimes you want to "translate" a given -ese into more commonly understood language while keeping the original text. Plain English will help you do this.

In a Plain English widget, the original text is highlighted in yellow. When you click on a phrase, it toggles to the re-written simpler version, in gray. Buttons at the top allow you to toggle the whole thing at once.

(Disclaimer: Plain English does not automatically generate translations. Rather, it's a tool that lets readers toggle between the original text and a human-written "translation".)

An example, from a Slate and NPR collaboration to translate the Federal Reserve's dense language into something easier to understand: