Can We Please Stop Referring To The Simplified English Watchtower A The Dumbed Down Version

by Philadelphia Ponos 64 Replies latest jw friends

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  RubaDub

  I've got a couple of the "Dummies" books ("C++ for Dummies", "Visual Basic for Dummies).

  The work "Dummies" is really not pejorative anymore.

  So why not just call it "Watchtower for Dummies" ?

  Rub a Dub
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  Mad Sweeney

  I don't want to be a broken record but I REALLY think the motive is to hook kids earlier and harder. When your JW kid is really little, you give them the Book of BS or the Great Teacher to keep them busy during the meeting. Now you can give them the Watchtower, written at their own level.
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  wasblind

  Think about it,

  with a busy schedule, even the most educated JW

  would rather read a dumb down version, because

  to them it's a brief summary of what is to be studied

  one quick glance and " BOOM " there's your kool-aid

  in no time, now off the the meeting. Oh please
• 

  DagothUr

  I have read all your posts and I have reached a verdict: it's the dumbed down version, no more, no less.
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  wasblind

  " So why not just call it "Watchtower for Dummies" ?

  Rub a Dub "

  Hey Rub a Dub,

  why not call it " Watchtower for really dumb dummies " perjorative added

  cause the original was already at an elementary level
• 

  Terry

  I don't know. The sentences in the Watchtower I've tried to read lately are stiff, peculiarly ordered and awkward.

  The Watchtower, now that I think about it, has always seemed as though it were written in a foreign language originally and translated INTO English, thus

  rendering it clumsy and disjointed.

  However, it is most likely simply a by-product of the strained reasoning crammed into a targeted outcome.

  I actually cannot read a Watchtower beyond a paragraph or so without getting physically ill. I'm not exaggerating.
• 

  Resistance is Futile

  I love the new dumbed down version. No more confusing big words.

  Obey.

  Obey the Governing Body.

  Obey the Governing Body or a big man in the sky will kill you.

  It's got to be a thankless job defending a dangerous doomsday cult.
• 

  undercover

  I don't want to be a broken record but I REALLY think the motive is to hook kids earlier and harder. When your JW kid is really little, you give them the Book of BS or the Great Teacher to keep them busy during the meeting. Now you can give them the Watchtower, written at their own level.

  Partly that I'm sure... but also partly because they have to attract people who aren't all that brilliant to begin with. In developed countries, it's too easy for anyone with normal intelligence or average common sense to research a potential new religion via the Internet. That leaves the vast majority of people out of the marketing campaign. So you have to go after the poor, the off-beat and the simple minded and the born-ins. And in third world countries where the resources to research aren't available, they can also use the dumbed down WT in their missionaries where they attempt to teach some English along with the WT religion.

  It's a win-win deal for them all around. It works for the poor, the uneducated, the immigrants, the little kids. It may disillusion some of the more intelligent, deeper thinking members, but they're probably willing to sacrifice them in order to trap several more gullible types. If they're that deep a thinker, odds are they're going to be trouble makers anyway. Better to attract 3 dupes to every thinker you lose.
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  jgnat

  The Watchower breaks a few rules of good writing. The use of third person, for instance, and the use of multisyllable words when one would do. I think the Watchtower does this on purpose to give a false sense of objectivity to their writing, and to couch their more controversial statements. I don't think a "simplified" Watcthower will make this any plainer.

  Native speakers of English might not notice that there is a marked difference between the way we write and the way we speak. I learned this the hard way when I had stellar employees - articulate and intelligent - who struggled to write clearly.

  I maintain that the simplified Watchtower won't help ESL students at all. It might help poor readers.
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  james_woods

  Interesting little ethical problem posed to JWs trying to place magazines door to door - well, does this person make the cut? No - better start him out on the baby food version...