George Washington in everyday language.

I read a little bit of an article debating Washington's Religious Beliefs....snooze....some say he was a deist, some say he probably was appeasing his wife, the christians want to claim him, the non-christians want to claim him...let the man be....

One time my buddy slade responded to my asking him if he was a snow boarder or a skier with "I'm just Slade".

Well here is a read on Washington that I really enjoyed and the comments I included because they are fun too.

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Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech

I’ve often heard that Washington’s ‘Farewell Address’ — the speech he sent out (in written form) to a bunch of papers at the end of his second term — is important. Apparently he lays down a lot of good ideas for America. But the common style of writing and vocabulary has changed since then. Maybe people have gotten dumber, too. Either way, the result is that it’s kind of a pain to read sometimes. Particularly tricky are the odd compound sentence structures, where it’s hard to keep track of what the subject is.

Having never read the whole thing, I thought it would be interesting to go through and try to transcribe it into some sort of casual modern speech. I wouldn’t try to recreate the prose and would probably miss out on subtleties and shades of meaning (and no doubt occasionally miss the point completely), but at least I’d get the idea of what he was talking about.

So I pulled up a copy off Wikisource and started reading and typing. Here’s the result:

A Bastardization of George Washington’s Farewell Address

Sup.

Elections are coming up, and it’s time to figure out who we wanna give the keys to. I figure it might clear things up if I take a sec to explain why I’m not running.

Now, I care about the future, don’t get me wrong, and thanks for your trust so far. I just think me quitting is a good idea on all counts.

I’ve been president twice now, and I didn’t want to do it either time. I tried to quit the first time, but the country was in trouble and every single person around me begged me to stay on.

I’m glad to say we’re pretty much in the clear now and I can get out of here without getting screamed at or letting things fall apart completely.

I told you when I started what I thought of the job. All I’m gonna say is that I did my best to set up the government right, but the more I do this the more I realize how dumb I am, and so maybe it’s okay if I let someone else take over.

Before I go I’ve gotta thank y’all, for the awards and honors and stuff but more importantly for your supporting my projects to try to make everything right, even if they didn’t always turn out quite as well as I hoped. Remember, it’s hard to tell how things will turn out when people get all fired up, so thanks for sticking by me even when everything was going to hell. Y’all get the credit for anything good that came out of it, and by God you’d better keep taking good care of the Constitution and the lives of the folks who live here. As long as you do, we’ll be a pretty kickass country and the other guys will start noticing us.

I should shut up, but I care about you guys, so there’s some more stuff to cover. I’ve been doing some thinking and I’ve got a few things to say. You know I ain’t biased ’cause all I want is to leave, so you might wanna listen up.

Now, you all love freedom enough that no one thing here is too important.

You’re all happy that the government’s so together and unified on everything (and you should be — it’s why everything’s so good), but it ain’t always gonna be this way. All sorts of folks from both here and elsewhere are gonna try to divide it, make you lose faith in it, so please don’t sell this whole America thing short. Make it your top priority and don’t ever get in a mindset where you can let ANYTHING divide you.

You’ve gotta be Americans before all else. You’re for the most part the same religion and culture, and you’ve got the same goals, and you’ve only got what you do because you all worked together.

But even though this sounds good, when it comes to crunch time it’s easy to forget that in favor of stuff that seems more immediately important than sticking together.

The North and the South, as equals, help each other. The South gets machines and junk from the North, the North gets crops from the South. Also, the South’s got some nice boats which go out and fetch stuff we need from time to time. You’ve got a similar situation with the East and the West. The East supplies the West with what it needs, and the West gets a market for its crap as well as — once we get a navy in gear — protection on the Atlantic side. There’s really no way they could safely do what they’re doing without the folks to the East.

So, we all need each other and we’re all stronger when we’re together. Being a family also means we can get along a little better, unlike certain countries I might name who aren’t so well unified. This makes us stronger and protects our freedom, and if you wanna keep protecting it you’d better get along.

It should be obvious here that we should all try to keep ourselves together. Sure, it’s a big country, and we’re not sure if we can keep it all together, but what the hell? Let’s give it a shot and find out. It’d be stupid to call it off because we’re not sure if it’ll work. Since it’s obvious how much we have to gain from keeping ourselves together, we can safely say that anyone who tries to divide us, anywhere, hates America.

Let’s think about where those splits might come from. The big one is geography. North and South, Atlantic and West, people are gonna try to emphasize the differences. They’re gonna lie about what the other side wants, and they’ll try to make you hate each other when you should all be brothers. You saw just a bit ago how some folks were trying to stir up suspicion out West that we were trying to pull one over on them with the whole Mississippi thing, but you saw how thanks to Congress dealing with Spain and England they got everything they wanted in the end. So maybe they won’t be so quick to talk about jumping ship next time.

Government’s important, and it’s not always easy to stay together. You’ve figured this out, and that’s why you ditched the last idea and came up with this Constitution. We went over it all carefully, big and small, and it’s definitely something we can trust (we can even amend it if necessary!). Give it some credit, and if you disagree, change it — don’t just disobey. Otherwise it just screws things up.

Getting in the way of the law for the sake of power plays similarly screws things up. Playing that game creates groups just looking out for themselves, turning crazy splinter groups into a powerful force. Let this get too bad and you’ll probably have the country tossed back and forth wildly as the various parties with their pet issues fight for power, rather than nice, consensual, unified government.

Parties are probably gonna look like they’re helping with one popular issue or another, so you’re gonna want support them, but I bet the guys in charge of them will just turn out to be power-hungry assholes who want to run everything.

To keep things going nicely, quit fighting with the government and be careful with letting folk amend the Constitution to weaken it. Just, in general, give it all time and see how it works out before being quick to judge. It’s a big country and we can’t keep everyone safe without a little centralization.

I just said that parties are no good, particularly regional ones. But lemme go a step further and say ALL parties are a bad idea.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty much human nature to gather into little factions like this. It’s worst in the freeest countries, and they suffer because of it.

Control goes back and forth between one party and another, and they just get more and more pissed, and we’ve seen that get really bad in the past. But it also leads to terrible, controlling government and general suckage. This gets the people more angry, they get behind one party leader or another, and that guy just takes that support and does whatever he wants, screwing up the country.

I’m not talking about anyone in particular here, but this isn’t necessarially too far off, and it’s always gonna be a threat, so keep an eye out.

This division distracts us, enfeebles the government, it gets everyone riled up with jealousy and false alarms, it pits us against each other, and eventually creates riots and stuff. It also opens the door to other countries getting a hand in our system, since they can reach in through the party structure, and then we just become their puppets.

Now, there’s the idea that the parties are important to defend freedom and put the government in its place. That might even be true sometimes; when you’ve got a real Nazi in charge, you can afford to rally behind a party, but you shouldn’t like it, and you should dump it ASAP. And there’s always gonna be a feeling of opposition to whatever the government is, so be sure you know what you’re doing before getting all partisan, and be very careful to know when to drop it so you don’t just make the problem worse.

Also, make very sure that you keep all your politicians in their place. There’s this tendency to let all the power shift into one office, which inevitably creates tyranny (just look at human nature and how much we love power). If you just divide up the power, and get everyone to watch everyone else, we’ve seen both in the past and right here at home that things will work out pretty well. And if you think the powers aren’t laid out right, just go ahead and amend the Constitution. But be careful, because that’s an easy way to destroy everything. Make sure you’re not switching to something that, no matter how good it is for now, sucks in the long term.

Now, religion and morality are vital here, and it’s silly to say that patriotism could ever be more important than those. Politicians need to be pious and respectful folk; it would take forever to list all the ways that being a good politician is tied to being moral and religious. All you need to do is ask — without religion, how can we trust anyone who swears an oath? And be awfully careful before suggesting that we can be moral without religion. There’s a lot of philosophical junk out there, but the bottom line is we can’t possibly suggest that we can keep our morals as a country without religion.

So, virtue is the root of Government. So anyone who screws with the basis of the government is obviously a bad guy.

Make education of everyone a high priority, because the government will only be as smart as the average people are.

Public credit’s important too. Don’t run up debts during peacetime so you can afford to draw on them when there’s a problem — and then pay them back ASAP. This is the job of the politicians, but the people need to keep them in line. And remember, to pay debts you need cash, and you have to get the cash from somewhere, and there’s no way to do that which people will like. It’s a tough issue with no easy answer, so try to have a good attitude and pay up when necessary.

Try to stay at peace with everyone. Religion and basic decency both say to do this, so it should be a no-brainer. It might even turn out that God arranged it so if we’re nice to everyone, we’re better off in the end. Wouldn’t that be sweet? It sucks, though, that we tend to be jerks sometimes.

It’ll help a lot if you can avoid permanent rivalries and permanent alliances. Just try to get along with everyone when you can. Otherwise, you’re a slave to your policy, which may take you somewhere bad when the situation changes. Constantly being enemies with a particular country makes you stupid and reactive, and can even lead you to war when you really don’t need to. The government gets all involved in this, and one way or another it turns out badly. Permanent alliances are bad too, because they makes you give stuff up when you shouldn’t, cause jealousy, and divide loyalties of your own citizens, often with pretty bad results.

The idea of this kind of alliance should scare any real American because it lets foreign countries meddle with us. And remember, if a weak little nation (us) gets too attached to a big strong nation (anyone else) you know we’ll be stuck in that arrangement forever.

Now, foreign meddling is one of the worst threats around, and you should be constantly paranoid about it. But be careful to be fair and sensible about it, otherwise you’ll get so focused on one country or another that you slip into alliances with other countries. And then, like I said, you turn into tools.

The most important thing about commercial trade is to avoid getting politically tangled. We’ve obviously gotta keep the promises we’ve made, but in the future let’s try not to make new ones.

Europe has a whole lot of issues that don’t mean a thing to us. So they’re gonna be fighting, and we need to make sure not to get involved with the folks on either side. We might make some nasty enemies we don’t need to.

Since we’re out here across the Atlantic, we get to do our own thing. And if we just keep it together for a little while, we might be strong enough to stand up for ourselves. And if we’re tough enough, other countries won’t want to start anything, so the choice of whether to go to war or keep the peace will be up to us.

And why give up this great situation? Why give up our country just so we can live in someone else’s? Seriously — why get involved in Europe’s squabbles?

So, we’ve gotta avoid permanent alliances. We can’t break the promises we’ve already made — the government has to be honest just like anyone — but we don’t need to make more and we don’t need to actively make the current ones longer.

(Now, as long as we’re fighting a defensive war, alliances are okay in emergencies.)

In the same way that we should be politically friendly and stay on good and fair terms with everyone, we should be fair and open financially too. Just let everything go as it will without being biased. Let natural trade routes open up, and don’t try to mess around with the whole thing one way or another. Just keep and enforce the laws on trade and traders, and keep them flexible enough to change as the situation changes — always keeping an eye out for those foreign meddling. Never get used to paying one country or another, and never get used to expecting them to pay you.

I like you all. We’re friends. I’m not gonna hope that you’ll actually remember all this for long, but I can hope that every now and then people will look back on what I said and use it to calm down a crazy political party, remind us not to get tied up with other countries, or to try to expose phoney patriots. That’s the only payment I need — the hope that in return for my looking after you, you’ll look after yourselves.

You can look at my record. In my years in charge I’ve done my best to follow all the ideas laid out in this message.

Oh, and about the war still going on in Europe right now — check out what I said on 4/22/1793. It’s the outline of my principles on the subject, which I have followed as closely as I possibly could.

I gave it a lot of thought, decided that we could stay neutral, and then took reasonable steps to make sure that’s what happened.

You know, if you just look at basic common decency it should be pretty obvious what a good idea neutrality is.

As to the reasons it’s a good idea, you can probably come up with plenty on your own. For me, the main thing has been that we’re a pretty new country, just trying to get settled, and we don’t wanna interrupt that with war right away.

Now, I can’t think of anything I knowingly screwed up over the last eight years. But I’m sure I’ve made mistakes, and I pray that God helps to repair any harm they caused. And I hope that you’re understanding about them. I’ve spent 45 years working really hard for this country, and I hope that you won’t be too hard on my incompetences once I’m gone.

Speaking of being gone, I am really looking forward to this retirement. And I’m especially looking forward to retiring to live in a peaceful, free country of good laws under a good government — a government which is a good reward for our shared hardship, work, and love.

Wow. That was fun, depressing, inspiring, and a little bit spooky.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

181 Responses to “Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech”
William Says:
January 29th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I’d have to agree. There are a few parts I disagree with(you can’t trust somebody just because they swore an oath even if they are religious, for example) but that was just frickin amazing.

Jon Says:
January 29th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I remember reading this in school, but I don’t think I truly appreciated how precient Washington really was until now. Would it be too much to ask to get your “translation” mailed to each person who registers to vote? Yes, of course it would, but still…

Concerned Citizen Says:
January 29th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
The problem isn’t that religious people are not reliably moral. The problem is that so few politicians are actually religious. Most of them are ex-fratboys who drank and slept around and did coke and then “found” Jesus, without really changing fundamentally.

But we can’t really expect any better. so we might as well just look for the most moral non-religious pols we can find. Then, regulate the hell out of them and throw the bastards in prison if they screw around on us.

Jon Says:
January 29th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
True, morality and religion are often uncorrelated. I’ll certainly exclude Washington’s morality-is-impossible-without-religion line from my blanket endorsement. That being said, religion was in some ways a much more private and subjective matter in Washington’s time (he certainly wasn’t a “conventional” Christian), and one could argue he’d drop that tack in this era of hypocritical religiosity.

I’m guilty of putting words in his mouth, sure, but then again, that’s kind of the whole exercise… =)

ScottLog » Blog Archive » How to choose leaders in projects. Says:
January 29th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
[…] The blog at xkcd.com recently posted a plain-english translation of George Washington’s Farewell Address (original text), a letter which he sent out to newspapers at the end of his second term (it’s worth a read, too. Do it, I’ll wait here…). In it, he describes not only his vision of America, the challenges he sees facing it, how he’s realized that is is something very much larger than himself (and it really is something great, I’ll agree), but also how he didn’t want to be president. Both times. […]

Braden Says:
January 29th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Thank you for doing that.

RoBotkin Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 1:46 am
While overall I appreciate the effort that went into the translation, I have to admit, I don’t like it. Even though I undestand that you were trying to put it in more modern terms, the entire thing seems like you’re the “fresh out of college middle class white teacher trying to show the urban highschool students he’s cool”. There was really no call for some of the slang you interjected, and some of the phrases seem downright silly. It’s like some mash-up of ebonics, valley-girl, and hillbilly that makes me sad to think you actually thought this is how modern people talk.

Good effort though. Really.

digitrev Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 1:50 am
Interesting read. I wish we had politicians that humble in our day and age.

Levity Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Because there’s always someone who has to take themselves, life, the universe and everything way too seriously, I was forced to pass XKCD’s translation of the Address through the Ebonics Translator at http://joel.net/EBONICS/translator.asp

The results should clarify any further doubt on the part of the feeble-minded regarding the difference between ebonics and the contents of the above blog post.

A couple small excerpts:

“Now, I care about da future, don’t git me wrong, an’ thanks fo’ yo’ trust so far. I just th’o't me quitting iz uh pimp-tight idea on all counts.”

[…]

“I like ya all. We’re niggas. I’m not gonna hope dat you’ll actually remember all dis here fo’ long, but I can hope dat every now an’ then peeps will peep back on what I said an’ use it ta calm down uh madness political party, remind us not ta git tied up wiff other countries, or ta try ta expose phoney patriots. That’s da only payment I need — da hope dat in return fo’ muh ma fuckin looking afta ya, you’ll peep afta yourselves.”

Sorry guys. I loved the post and I didn’t want to have to do this, but RoBotkin left me no choice. Don’t try this at home!

Forest Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Of the many things mentioned that are still topical today, the one that stood out for me was his opposition of parties. He is pessimistic, saying “The spirit of party… is inseparable from our nature…” This idea has much broader scope than just politics. Worse than accepting common ideas without challenge is accepting common judgment without knowing the motivation. It is scary to me how we all can form opinions without justification. I haven’t looked into it, but I’m pretty sure the Democrats are to blame.

Tony Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 3:39 am
That was amazing. Thank you.

Lids Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 4:02 am
I’m gonna send this link to everyone.
Good Job.
Salutes.

Milchmann Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 4:47 am
Many thanks for the “translation”!

It’s very interesting how the attitude and orientation of the American-Politic did change since this text was written.

I’m European and didn’t know very much about Washington untill now. Now I’ve great respect towards him. This is a something everybody who wants to vote should read at least once (and not only in the USA).

I will try to translate xkcd’s version into German.

greetings from germany!
David

Jeremy Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Wow, that was a good read…

Could you imagine what would happen if a modern president made a similar speech(minus the religion bit, of course)? I think we need to give political candidates tests on this speech!

Reis Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Amazing. That was awesome and i shall be passing the link on to everyone.

Kates Journal » Blog Archive » Sickly, again. Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 8:56 am
[…] So, lots of web browsing and sleeping later, I bring you some good news, and something interesting. […]

Emily Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:52 am
How long did this take? It’d be worth doing for some other historical speeches/documents (American and otherwise).

Bill LeClere Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 11:19 am
thought you might like this in the same spirit:

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN AMERICAN

By H.L. Mencken

Baltimore Evening Sun, Nov. 7, 1921

WHEN things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody.

All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain’t got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he likes, so long as he don’t interfere with nobody else. That any government that don’t give a man them rights ain’t worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any government don’t do this, then the people have got a right to give it the bum’s rush and put in one that will take care of their interests. Of course, that don’t mean having a revolution every day like them South American yellowbellies, or every time some jobholder goes to work and does something he ain’t got no business to do. It is better to stand a little graft, etc., than to have revolutions all the time, like them coons, and any man that wasn’t a anarchist or one of them I.W.W.’s would say the same. But when things get so bad that a man ain’t hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost call him a slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw the grafters out, and put in new ones who won’t carry on so high and steal so much, and then watch them. This is the proposition the people of these Colonies is up against, and they have got tired of it, and won’t stand it no more. The administration of the present King, George III, has been rotten from the start, and when anybody kicked about it he always tried to get away with it by strong-arm work. Here is some of the rough stuff he has pulled:

He vetoed bills in the Legislature that everybody was in favor of, and hardly nobody was against.

He wouldn’t allow no law to be passed without it was first put up to him, and then he stuck it in his pocket and let on he forgot about it, and didn’t pay no attention to no kicks.

When people went to work and gone to him and asked him to put through a law about this or that, he give them their choice: either they had to shut down the Legislature and let him pass it all by himself, or they couldn’t have it at all.

He made the Legislature meet at one-horse tank-towns, so that hardly nobody could get there and most of the leaders would stay home and let him go to work and do things like he wanted.

He give the Legislature the air, and sent the members home every time they stood up to him and give him a call-down or bawled him out.

When a Legislature was busted up he wouldn’t allow no new one to be elected, so that there wasn’t nobody left to run things, but anybody could walk in and do whatever they pleased.

He tried to scare people outen moving into these States, and made it so hard for a wop or one of these here kikes to get his papers that he would rather stay home and not try it, and then, when he come in, he wouldn’t let him have no land, and so he either went home again or never come.

He monkeyed with the courts, and didn’t hire enough judges to do the work, and so a person had to wait so long for his case to come up that he got sick of waiting, and went home, and so never got what was coming to him.

He got the judges under his thumb by turning them out when they done anything he didn’t like, or by holding up their salaries, so that they had to knuckle down or not get no money.

He made a lot of new jobs, and give them to loafers that nobody knowed nothing about, and the poor people had to pay the bill, whether they could or not.

Without no war going on, he kept an army loafing around the country, no matter how much people kicked about it.

He let the army run things to suit theirself and never paid no attention whatsoever to nobody which didn’t wear no uniform.

He let grafters run loose, from God knows where, and give them the say in everything, and let them put over such things as the following:

Making poor people board and lodge a lot of soldiers they ain’t got no use for, and don’t want to see loafing around.

When the soldiers kill a man, framing it up so that they would get off.

Interfering with business. Making us pay taxes without asking us whether we thought the things we had to pay taxes for was something that was worth paying taxes for or not.

When a man was arrested and asked for a jury trial, not letting him have no jury trial.

Chasing men out of the country, without being guilty of nothing, and trying them somewheres else for what they done here.

In countries that border on us, he put in bum governments? and then tried to spread them out, so that by and by they would take in this country too, or make our own government as bum as they was.

He never paid no attention whatever to the Constitution, but he went to work and repealed laws that everybody was satisfied with and hardly nobody was against, and tried to fix the government so that he could do whatever he pleased.

He busted up the Legislatures and let on he could do all the work better by himself.

Now he washes his hands of us and even goes to work and declares war on us, so we don’t owe him nothing, and whatever authority he ever bad he ain’t got no more.

He has burned down towns, shot down people like dogs, and raised hell against us out on the ocean.

He hired whole regiments of Dutch, etc., to fight us, and told them they could have anything they wanted if they could take it away from us, and sicked these Dutch, etc., on us.

He grabbed our own people when he found them in ships on the ocean, and shoved guns into their hands, and made them fight against us, no matter how much they didn’t want to.

He stirred up the Indians, and give them arms and ammunition, and told them to go to it, and they have killed men, women and chdren, and don’t care which.

Every time he has went to work and pulled any of these things, we have went to work and put in a kick, but every time we have went to work and put in a kick he has went to work and did it again. When a man keeps on handing out such rough stuff all the time, all you can say is that he ain’t got no class and ain’t fitten to have no authority over people who have got any rights, and he ought to be kicked out.

When we complained to the English we didn’t get no more satisfaction. Almost every day we give them plenty of warning that the politicians over there was doing things to us that they didn’t have no right to do. We kept on reminding them who we was, and what we was doing here, and how we come to come here. We asked them to get us a square deal, and told them that if this thing kept on we’d have to do something about it and maybe they wouldn’t like it. But the more we talked, the more they didn’t pay no attention to us. Therefore, if they ain’t for us they must be agin us, and we are ready to give them the fight of their lives, or to shake hands when it is over.

Therefore be it resolved, That we, the representatives of the people of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, hereby declare as follows: That the United States, which was the United Colonies in former times, is now a free country, and ought to be; that we have throwed out the English King and don’t want to have nothing to do with him no more, and are not taking no more English orders no more; and that, being as we are now a free country, we can do anything that free countries can do, especially declare war, make peace, sign treaties, go into business, etc. And we swear on the Bible on this proposition, one and all, and agree to stick to it no matter what ha pens, whether we win or we lose, and whether we get away with it or get the worst of it, no matter whether we lose all our property by it or even get hung for it.

xkcd Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 11:29 am
RoBotkin: Well, I’m sorry you didn’t like the words I picked. I wasn’t writing down to anyone and I wasn’t using other peoples’ slang. I was writing because it’s fun to find phrases in your own repertoire that mean the same thing as other phrases. But, you know, nothing in it really felt all that outrageous. I tried not to write anything that I wouldn’t actually say in one situation or another. I really was more interested in getting what Washington said in the plainest words possible than sounding funny or cool or whatever. Of course, I live in the South, where the second-person plural pronoun “y’all” doesn’t instantly mean “hillbilly” and you can say “ain’t” now and then. So I wonder how much this exercise fails based on the normal slang around the reader. Anyway, omg whatev c u l8r <3<3.

Emily: A couple hours, give or take. I want to do some more; any suggestions?

RoBotkin Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Well, I guess such is the burden I bear being raised on at least semi-proper use of the English language.

xkcd Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Well, by all means, translate it into words that work for you. That’s sort of the point.

GreedyAlgorithm Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
RoBotkin: Haha, yes, the burden you bear, poor thing. I suggest you start here, at the Language Log, and read up on dialects. You know who holds the record for the most egregious use of the English language? William mf’n Shakespeare. When half the country holds some stance on ethics, that doesn’t necessarily make the stance right, but when half the country is perfectly fine with “y’all”, that does make it right, like it or not. There is no specification of “English that should be used in speeches”. It evolves over time. Consider the fact that Washington’s original speech sounds nothing like any language you hear today?

And this isn’t just a “stop making fun of my culture” thing, either. Your concept of proper use of the English language really and truly is fundamentally flawed. But don’t worry, it’s identical to the concept that most grammar teachers have, just not linguists. And who needs linguists to tell us what’s what with respect to language, anyway? What do they know?

Anti-Language-Nazi-Nazi signing off.

Andrew Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Honestly, I sort of agree with RoBotkin in that this seems like you’re trying to act like a teacher. Honestly, we need more of these modernizations. One of the reasons that most of the electorate are so easily steered by advertising and vapid attack ads is that they themselves have no opinion of their own. They have not studied or read the most important articles and letters from our past. Most of our fellow countrymen don’t know all the freedoms of the bill of rights. In my opinion, your “translation” should be considered to be amongst one of the greatest of democratic traditions, democratization of knowledge.

Most people will not, even if told it’s vitally important, read documents such as this. The reason? To your average citizen a long document such as Washington’s farewell address contains too many constructions and words which seem strange in our society, e.g. discountenancing. If one were to reword such a document into the modern vernacular its meaning becomes immediately clear and people can readily read it. What does this modern vernacular sound like? Speak, sound out the word in your head. Does this person make sense? If so then you could consider it modern. If however, the person’s sentence construction sounds a bit off, or if you have to think about it, chances are people won’t want to read upwards of 4500 words of it.

As for dialectic speech, when I moved from Philadelphia to Gainesville hearing people say “y’all” would make my ears burn. After some 15 years I’ve both gotten over it and use it as appropriate. Now whenever I hear “yous guys” I cringe.

I’d love to see some of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense put through the xkcd filter though.
http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/index.htm

Hanae Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
spooky how many horrid little episodes he portends. in this updated speech, it’s easy to just picture washington on the sidelines shaking his head at all the little ways people have been justifying their own selfish means. good stuff. i particularly enjoyed this bit: “It might even turn out that God arranged it so if we’re nice to everyone, we’re better off in the end. Wouldn’t that be sweet? It sucks, though, that we tend to be jerks sometimes.”

Ananda Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
RoBotkin: My my, such a burden it is to claim that your speech and extremely fortunate high-minded cultural upbringing are superior to all others’. No one who talks with the ease of a African-American valley girl bumpkin could possibly be as intelligent as you are. I am in awe of your amazing intellectual prowess. Truly, you are the elite of the elitist. (Spelling is correct).

From the hallowed trails first tread by Strunk, White, Webster, and Ms. Grimshaw (my second grade teacher), RoBotkin has emerged as the keeper of the one and only true dialect; that dialect with which all Americans are entrusted to use properly, lest they suffer the scorn and shame of appearing to be- dare I even mention it? - in touch with those less educated than RoBotkin.

All hail, RoBotkin, Supreme Douche for the Coochie that is Diversity.

Nathan Friedly Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Dude, that was awesome! I think I’m going to email it to a couple of my professors.

Adam's Blog Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
The New International George Washington

Given the proliferation of Bible versions, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a translation of the Founding Fathers into modern conversational English.

The attempt comes from this blog. Here is a somewhat unserious effort:

…

Bravehamster Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Nicely done!

If you’re looking for suggestions, I think the Gettysburg Address would be an interesting one to do next.

xkcd Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Bravehamster: I’ve gotten really attached to the wording of the Gettysburg Address, actually. Ooh, it would be an interesting one to try to redo in a specific style, though (as opposed to just miscellaneous slang and other vernacular junk, like this one).

Belial Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Robotkin: “Well, I guess such is the burden I bear being raised on at least semi-proper use of the English language.”

A language which lacks the following:

A suitable and disambiguated second person plural pronoun.

A contraction for the first person linking verb in the negative (”I am not”) to accompany similar contractions for the second and third person (”You aren’t”, “He isn’t”)

Given the gaping flaws in coverage in your “semi-proper” English, I tend to prefer the version of the language that includes “y’all” and “ain’t”.

Claire Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
That was awesome. I really like the idea of redoing speeches into vernacular. You could try doing FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” speech, although it certainly isn’t as archaic and probably wouldn’t require too much modification.

K. Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Amanda:

+1. Wish my brain wuz as ballin 0utta c0ntr0l as RoBotkin’s. OMFGZ! b3t his neck gets t3h sore from carrying around hiz gin0rm0us brainz lolz! I r just teh ign0rantz, as 3vinc3d by t3h fact i cant sp3ak or typ3 right R0FLC0pt3r!!1 l0ll3rblad3z!!11exclamati0np0int!!

Belial Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
K:

As much as I just attacked robotkin for championing his rigid standard of proper english….

What you just typed hurt my brain a lot. Please die.

The Mad Engineer Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
If I weren’t already a lesbian and in a happy relationship I’d totally ask you out. That said:

One of the reasons I stay out of politics is because more and more they make the message unnecessarily complicated. And the older “simple” messages have been buried under years of dumication on the part of the general public.

Now if only someone would translate some of the works of Marcus Aurelius, that would be wicked awesome.

mantooth Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
I was about to tell off Robotkin as well but Ananda and GreedyAlgorithm and others beat me to it. Thanks. He is a douche.

Feste Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
*Applause*

Let’s spread this around, yes?

Justin Bassett Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I’m not gonna lie, this helped me pass my US history test.

Monsterboy Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
“Parties are probably gonna look like they’re helping with one popular issue or another, so you’re gonna want support them, but I bet the guys in charge of them will just turn out to be power-hungry assholes who want to run everything.”

That was so my favorite bit!

Jacob’s blog » Washington’s farewell address Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
[…] Randall Munroe, of xkcd fame, has gone and translated George Washington’s farewell address into everyday speech. It’s an utterly fascinating read, and much more tractable than trying to read the whole thing (it’s quite long) in his original text. Washington’s ideas on what makes good government are well argued by him, and Munroe has made it accessable. Give it a read, you won’t regret it! […]

Rob Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
This was a brilliant idea, I’m going to show this translation to everybody.

Oh and Robotkin you need to be just a little less pedantic, its been translated into a relaxed style of english purposely to make it easier for people to relate to and because its fun.

Metal Fatigue Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
To Bill LeClere: I hardly think that’s in the same spirit. Mencken, the great anti-populist, was mocking the exaggerated dialect into which he “translated” the Declaration of Independence; Randall used what appears (given how he writes in the comic) to be the dialect in which he actually speaks, and is clearly sincere in admiring the text on which he worked.

Metal Fatigue Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Oh, and I’m tempted to do some of the Federalist Papers, myself–or maybe “Common Sense”–but I’m selfish and would rather do something with more immediate use to me.

sean Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Fantastic job, sir! I am in awe of Washington’s insight concerning political parties and the assholes who run them. The H.L. Mencken piece was interesting too, so perhaps you could give us your own version of the Declaration of Independence? If not the Gettysburg Address, then how about the Emancipation Proclamation?

Pathway Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Don’t take this too hard, but I prefer the original. I think it’s important to preserve the tone and the nuance of the document.

That said, it’s a well done adaptation. Gets an A.

stephen Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 1:38 am
My favorite part was definitely the “sup”. It still tickles me.

I’m interested to see the Gettysburg address. Will you be able to do it justice?

Donny Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 2:22 am
Although Robotkin was tactless, s/he comes close to touching on a valid point: Washington was Virginia, and unlikely to use the word/phrase “y’all” even today. Well, at least, none of the Virginians I’ve met have used “y’all.” I can say that I don’t know very many, though.

I think what Robotkin misses out on is the idea that this was ‘translated’ into “everyday speech,” not “oratory speech.” S/He’s right in that it’s not something someone would use as a speech, but if Washington were chilling with his home boys, and wanted to explain things to them, I bet that’s how he’d do it.

…

If one were to rewrite the Gettysburg Address, would they alter the number 87 (”four score and seven”) to accurately reflect the number today? 231? (Eleven score and eleven?)

Jalf Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 5:22 am
Robotkin: Way to miss the point. (And also come off as an arrogant asshole)
The point in this translation was to make it easier to read for us today.
It wasn’t to write it “exactly how Washington would have written it had he lived today”.
Keeping that in mind, the translation works pretty well.

Dano Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 8:35 am
I use y’all all the time . . . did even before I spent a couple of months living in TN. English needs a second person plural.

Dwight Brown Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 9:50 am
While my admiration for XKCD is finite but unbounded, I think it would be hard to beat the Powerpoint version of the Gettysburg Address:

http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/

Jo Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 10:41 am
Washington’s Address: Great job. Speaking as someone who’s lived in both ‘California Valleys’ and the South/Southwest… it doesn’t sound that much like either dialect. Heaven help me for saying this, but… it sounds pretty damn normal. Anywho, I digress. Very nive, very nice… especially at showing that we’ve all completely gone and blown Washington off. ¬_¬

Dwight Brown- *laughs* Nice. Though I don’t know if the PowerPoint version beats the original.

Xialung Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 10:43 am
This simply rocked. I have been enjoying your webcomic since exposed to it on slashdot a few months ago. Keep up the good work

xkcd Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Okay, I think Robotkin was making what could be a decent point at first — that the writing style is lame and unrealistic. And hey, modesty forbids me from arguing too much on that point — writing is largely supposed to stand up for itself without later help from the author. But I can’t help but note — I wasn’t trying to mimic any particular dialect, I was just using various slang and stuff that I know and hear. So, that said, whatever.

Donny: I’ve been living in Virginia for the majority of my life and my neighbors use it liberally. It’s less common in Northern Virginia and to a lesser degree Virginia Beach, but everywhere else it’s pretty accepted. And I’m a little confused by your point — Washington wouldn’t use *most* of the phrases I put there. That’s the purpose — putting it into my words instead of his.

As for the Gettysburg Address, I wouldn’t change the 87 :) I mean, changing the language and changing the content/context are fairly separate. If we’re gonna do that, we might as well change it to be about the Iraq war . . .

Metal Fatigue: I was startled by how long Common Sense was. That’s definitely a task that would take quite a while.

Dwight Brown: It’s indeed hard to top the PowerPoint Gettysburg Address. Edward Tufte did a wonderful pamphlet entitled “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint” which should be required reading for anyone who uses that software for anything with technical or informational content (anything besides pure sales).

Matt Giuca Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Wow, well done man. It’s really sad reading that with hindsight, to realise that the US has slowly chipped away at everything Washington stood for in this address.

Also interesting that just about the only thing he was worried about that didn’t come to pass was other countries meddling in the US affairs. Instead, the US meddles in everyone else’s affairs.

Stalker Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 12:57 pm
As an Englishman I could argue that my opinion on “correct” use of English is more valid than an American’s - and I use “ain’t” all the time. The second person plural pronoun around here is “yez.” Vive la difference!

Belial Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 1:06 pm
yez? I like…..I might have to start using that instead of y’all

GreedyAlgorithm Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 1:38 pm
“yez”… okay, I’ll use it. Maybe it will catch on. Spam “yez” everyone!

BallpointPenguin Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 2:06 pm
GreedyAlgorithm:

To paraphrase Dave Barry: “To this I say, ‘pish-tush,’ not necessarily because I disagree, but because I like the sound of it. I encourage you to do it as well - you’ll find yourself saying it and liking it!”

BallpointPenguin Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I forgot to mention - I love this. It seems more approachable, without “sanitizing” the original (as Rev. Bowdler did with Shakespeare’s works). It is a respectful - and respectable! - paraphrasing of Washington, and I applaud the author for the audacity to do this and the skill to do it well.

Electric Dragon Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 4:26 pm
How about the “To be or not be” soliloquy? I’ve dashed this off rather quickly so I hope it makes sense.

http://www.artofeurope.com/shakespeare/sha8.htm

To live or to die - that’s the question. Is it better to suffer in silence while everything goes to hell, or kill yourself? Dying would stop all that shit. It’s like going to sleep - and you don’t feel any of the pain and aches we suffer normally - sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? But what if we dream? That’s the problem - the dreams we may have when we’re dead frighten us. That’s what makes life so shit. For why else should we put up with that crap - bullies, arrogant dickheads, brownnosing colleagues, stupid long lawsuits, officious twats and trying to climb the greasy pole - when we could end it all so easily with a dagger? Who would suffer through their burdens, sweat and toil through a life they hate? The fact is, they’re scared of going to Hell, never to come back, so they put up with the devil they know. So the concious mind makes us all cowards, and stuff we instinctively want gets overridden by thinking too much. The most important actions get put to one side because of this and the chance to do something is lost.

[Ophelia approaches] Shut up Hamlet! Ophelia’s coming.

[to Ophelia] Hey babe, don’t forget me in those prayers.

sd Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I would be inclined to agree with xkcd that the Gettysburg Address, while it could be an interesting basis for some kind of adaptation (and I’d totally read that, btw), does not need nor lend itself to “translation”. Lincoln’s meaning is in no way obscure, partly just because he’s closer to our own time and partly because that’s how Lincoln rolls–his points are not at risk of getting lost in a thicket of subordinate clauses or overly-formal rhetoric. Also, the Address is very short and doesn’t waste a word.

“Translating” works whose phrasing is very famous is usually a dicey proposition; Mencken can get away with it because he was a) making a satirical point and b) a genius. The Farewell Address was a good choice because it can be a tough slog in the original and because the original wording isn’t so deeply ingrained in most people’s minds that any alternate version comes off as a gimmick.

mike stone Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Let’s clarify this ‘religion’ thing in equally modern terms:

“To make a country work, people have to trust each other. There’s way too much stuff going on for everyone to be looking over everyone else’s shoulder all the time.

“Now, ‘trust’ is just another way of saying you can make reliable predictions about what someone will do. If you can’t predict what someone will do in a given situation, you have to ask them, and like I said, there’s just too much stuff going on for that to work. If you can’t rely on people, then you can’t get anything done. Nobody wants to put a lot of time, effort and money into a project, only to see it all fall apart because some jackass changed his mind at the last minute.

“That means you should look for two things in people: First, they need a coherent, inclusive and generally understandable set of standards for what’s Right and what’s Wrong. Second, they need to live in a way that shows a healthy fear of doing what’s Wrong.

“I should probably define ‘fear’, here: It doesn’t mean trembling guts and sweaty palms. That’s ‘panic’. ‘Fear’ means admitting that actions have consequences, and that sometimes those consequences are bad. A person standing on the edge of a cliff can be perfectly calm, but aware that leaping around could send them falling to their death. If that person chooses to move carefully while they’re on the cliff-top, they do so out of ‘fear’.

“A person with a healthy fear of doing Wrong understands that doing Wrong will hurt them in the end. That knowledge is just part of their background awareness of the world, and trying to sell them on the idea of doing Wrong ends up being pretty much like trying to sell them on the idea of jumping off a cliff. When you meet someone whose reason for doing Right is, “well DUH!,” you’ve found someone you can trust.

“Take either of those pieces away, though, and no no longer have a foundation for trust.

“Take away the standards and you have situational ethics. That brings back the whole “can’t predict, have to ask” problem, but there’s an even more fundamental problem: There’s simply no way to trust such a person. If everything in a person’s ethical standard is really up for grabs, that includes “telling the truth about their ethical standard.” You can’t just assume they’re telling you the truth about anything, and there are lots of good reasons to assume they aren’t. And even if they do tell what they consider to be the truth at that moment, their definition of truth can change as soon as the situation changes. And ‘the situation’ changes ALL THE TIME. In practice, this means you’re dealing with a person who will sell you out to anyone who offers them a good enough ‘better deal’, or will end up shafting you royally on the mistaken assumption that they were only shafting you a little.

“Just avoid people like that.

“If you take away the healthy sense of fear, accountability goes with it. That’s situational ethics again, but of a lesser sort. People like that keep their promises the same way they stick to a diet. In practice, this means you’re dealing with someone who thinks ‘feeling Really Bad about letting you down’ is an adequate substitute for ‘doing what they promised to do in the first place’. And they will NOT go away until you agree to endorse their self-image of being a Good Person in spite of having screwed you over by doing Bad Things.

“People like that are less directly evil than the first sort, but Damn, they can be annoying. And again, you just can’t trust them.

“Now, even when you do find a person with a healthy fear of doing Wrong, it takes time to learn that person’s set of ethical standards well enough that you can make reliable predictions about their behavior. There’s only so much time in a day, and as I’ve already said a couple of times, it takes a LOT of work to keep a country going. Having a thousand people try to learn, remember, and coordinate the ethical standards of the other 999 just won’t work.

“So what a country really needs is some kind of institution that teaches everyone the same set of ethical standards and encourages the development of a healthy fear of doing Wrong. We’ll give bonus points for any institution that’s been around long enough to show that its standards do tend to work over the long run, and are complete enough to cover pretty much any situation people are likely to run into from day to day. And guess what? We have one: it’s called Religion.

“A country whose people honestly live up to the standards of a handful of religions can do amazing things. Most of the big religions teach share much the same set of rules for how to deal with people every day, and it isn’t too hard for people to accommodate each other on the few points where a difference between standards have political consequences. When it comes to making a country run, we don’t have to believe someone is going to Heaven; we just need to know that we can trust them to live up to a standard that’s basically compatible with our own.

“Keep an eye on the situational ethicists, though. Their whole concept of ethics revolves around playing word games, and they want to spread their standard just as much as the religious types do.

“Do Not Listen To Them. They do nothing but sow confusion.

“If you listen to the situational ethicists long enough, you end up believing that up is down, black is white, and freedom of speech means forbidding people to say anything that someone else doesn’t like. They live to destroy the common standards that allow a country to run smoothly, usually for personal gain, but sometimes just for the mental challenge. They produce the grease that goes on the slippery slope to factions and infighting, and they’ll be the first to explain why tyranny that works to their own advantage is actually Freedom.”

cube Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Wow, mike, that was great. It’s remarkable how much emotion and energy there is behind these old speeches, and how gutless modern political oratory feels by contrast.

I second Metal Fatigue on the Federalist Papers. Lot of intriguing material there, though I doubt it could be as topical as Washington’s address.

Javykins Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Wow everyone here types out proper english and shit on their blog comments. I’ve gotten so use to the YouTube style comments. So anyways good job xkcd that shit PWNED. Laytro.

Garrett Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I am going to send this around, maybe it will reach the eyes of just the right people =)

Pathway Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Haha… Javykins, haven’t you seen the xkcd YouTube comic? http://xkcd.com/c202.html

As far as “situational ethics” is concerned, I have to confess that I Wikipedia’d it as soon as I read the term–and I approved of some of the consequences. It contains mistakes, obviously, but I think the problem lies more in people than in their ethical philosophy. Which is what Washington was warning us about.

Damn, what I wouldn’t give to be able to sit every single politician down and force them to read that.

NumberThree Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 9:45 pm
i miss the days when the blag was filled with completely unintelligible math jargon (i study the classics) instead of the random dickbag who bases his opinions on preconceptions. i guess this is what increased popularity and a more common audience leads to.

Id Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Welcome to the internet, NumberThree :P

Javykins Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 12:24 am
Wow how embarrassing I forgot to capitalise the word English, but then so did all the other smarty pants on here.

Shelly Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 2:57 am
Eh, I was amused by “Stalker”’s comments about “ain’t”–for the record, “ain’t” used to be common in some ritzy upper-class dialect in Great Britain about 150 years ago or so. When “commoners” started using it, though, it got abandoned as it was no longer a distinguishable marker of the upper-class. So it’s been both “upper-class” and “hillybilly” lingo, and now, as a contraction for “am not,” it’s steadily slipping into common usage, at least in US.

As to the Farewell Address as done by XKCD–I think it was great. I will confess that I do love the language of the original, and there are probably connotations that are lost as it’s “translated”–but that’s okay. I mean, frankly, most people either can’t or won’t get through the original work, but this translation was written smoothly enough to keep anyone reading it. And in the end, getting the bulk of what was in the address out to the general public is well-worth the possible loss of minor subtleties that most of the readers wouldn’t get in the first place. And I think an amazing job was done in getting most if not all the important points across in a way that, while easily comprehensible, still stuck out and grabbed the reader’s attention.

…funny how some things are amazingly applicable to this day and age, isn’t it? People don’t change much, I guess. And y’know… the issues GW talked about then are still relevant today… I second the motion that all politicians should read have to read the address (in either form!)… and while they’re at it, they should be required to read the freakin’ Constitution. Might do them some good.

Thanks for the enjoyable read!

fbehemot Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 7:44 am
Hm… It’s great, it’s really, really great.
Now, about the original - I’ve read quite complicated and elaborate writings, I still do, but this one is… errm… a piece of needlessly overcomplicated legalese. Seriously, it doesn’t gain *anything* from the style, pardon me - *what* style? It’s horrible, and I get the impression that it was written this way to seem more… “educated”. Educated it is, but certainly waay out of smart/intelligent/comprehensible league. It feels like reeding an EULA, just worse.

AceJohnny Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 8:30 am
When I’m going to have kids, I’ll show them this post.

Thanks a lot for making such an important text more readily acceptable, even if isn’t perfect.

Gnorb.NET » Blog Archive » Le Linkage #14: The Human Factor Edition Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 10:59 am
[…] Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Modern English: In the course of human history, not many have had quite as strong an impact as General George Washington, the first President of the United States. His farewell address is agreed upon by historians to be one of the finest in all American politics, since it deals with issues we struggle with even unto this day. The problem is that since it is written in 1790’s English, most people today can’t really understand it, which is why xkcd undertook the task of translating the piece into modern English. One his commenters upped the ante, reposting a modern day translation of the American Declaration of Independence. […]

WarriorPoet Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Instead of dumbing Washington’s stirring and beautiful words down and -completely- losing the reserved passion that makes the farewell address important, modern people should be sharpening up. It sickens and saddens me that we have to ruin such an eloquent speech by dumbing it down to the level of ‘Hoes in different area codes’ for your average citizen to understand it, since really reading and reasoning over an inspiring passion would be… absurd, right?

-WP hates people.

Chris Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 2:33 pm
WP: While I agree that the passion was there in the first place, language is constantly evolving. The definition of eloquence is constantly changing, as is the use of any language. The purpose of language is both communication and dramatic delivery. While all of Washington’s wonderful diction may have been taken out, if all you got out of the speech were some pretty words then you’ve missed the point of the speech. The ideas behind the speech are more important.

And this is definitely not the “hoes in different area codes” version. I hang around teenagers all day and they’re disgustingly worse than xkcd’s translation. If anything, this translation is more conversational and less dramatic.

Chris Drost Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 3:00 pm
WarriorPoet: I disagree.

The issue here is that language is relatively fluid; and that’s been a problem among authors throughout the English language. Dictionaries have arrested the word-for-word evolution of language, but the structural evolution, and the choices of idioms, both continue to change even to this day.

I’d have to recall Alexander Pope’s famous words, “Our sons their fathers’ failing language see / And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.” Well, at least dictionaries kept us from being unable to read Dryden, but it is a very different experience from everyday conversation.

A translation of idiom from late 18th century to early 21st century is nothing to be lamented.

JulyFlame Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Damned right.

Not as much as what everyone else is saying about this ‘translation’, but damned right all the same.

WarriorPoet Says:
February 1st, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Rereading it, I definately went in with kind of a frowning bias, and it’s not ‘bad’ or anything. It just disturbs me that we can rip so much out of Washington’s stirring words but still try to retain the message. Maybe it’s the man himself that created the kind of ‘aura’ that’s missing from the translation.

I’m all for putting things in terms we can all understand, but Washington wasn’t sitting around the bar, shooting the shit with his buddies, and I guess that is what xkcd was going for. The proper frame of mind just wasn’t there, for me.

And I’ll apologize for the tone of my first post. Early morning grumpiness is a problem for me…

Rodrigo Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:05 am
Liked it.
I prefer the old version and I think that’s the one people should use, but if the original thing ain’t good enough or lacks clarity (for whatever reason) go for the updated version.
Wasa the language perfect? Probably not. Could any of us have done a significantly better version? Hell, no.
Well done

However…if everything gets simplified we get Beethoven’s 5th turned into a Barney-song. The original is THE one.

Well done, well done, well frigging done!!!

Porlock Junior Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 am
If you’re looking for a text to put in plain modern English, here’s one that has been almost-suggested a few times in this thread:
The Constitution of the United States

Warm up with the Bill of Rights. The prose is much more transparent than Washington’s, but the needed care and precision in saying exactly what the original says is more than, if I may say so, the translation of the Farewell Address shows in all places. Still, it’s easy in places:

Amendment 9: If a right isn’t named here, that doesn’t mean you don’t have that right.

Supose someone forced the Attorney General of the United States to read that.

Bradpiece Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:35 am
This was a fantastic read, and spooky all the problems that Washington predicted that we’ve had to deal with (and are still dealing with).

I’d love to see something like this done for some good ol’ fashioned philosophy. I am intrigued and challenged by some of the ideas to be found in these works, but a lot of the time I get so bogged down with the language that I miss out some on the ideas behind the words.

Dusty Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:52 am
Great post! I have never read the original version of this piece, but I now feel obligated to do so. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

kapp Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 pm
love it, sent it to a couple of people. if you’re looking for american political stuff i’d suggest some inaugural addresses of former presidents.

http://www.bartleby.com/124/

has the full text of all the inaugural addresses of every president. actually, bartelby.com would be a great site in general because they have a lot of classic works on there.

hell, you could try it with some of bush’s speeches. i’d love to know what it is we’re supposed to be scared of today.

bill Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Good lord — is THAT what he said? This makes me want to go read the original. Thanks.

Nathan Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Love it. Too bad he said that “you must believe in supernatural entities without evidence in order to be moral” nonsense, but that has no bearing on the skill of the translation. Great post!

Ralph Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Oh, how lovely. This could very well be the only entry in a blog I’ve ever read the entire way through.

They were right, reading IS fun!

phobos Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
“The idea of this kind of alliance should scare any real American because it lets foreign countries meddle with us. And remember, if a weak little nation (us) gets too attached to a big strong nation (anyone else) you know we’ll be stuck in that arrangement forever.”

It happened, but not quite in the same way Mr Washington foresaw it… Then again, watching Blair pretend that he was in any way involved with any important decisions over the whole Iraq thing is tremendously funny, in a desperately depressing sort of way.

Akagra » Blog Archive » Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
[…] xkcd » Blog Archive » Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech Sup. […]

Sup, Y’all « Creative Destruction Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
[…] Sup, Y’all Filed under: Content-lite — Robert @ 12:58 pm George Washington’s Farewell Address, translated into modern colloquial English. Pretty funny - and a pretty good reminder of just how prescient the man was. […]

King Alfred Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Actually, English has a perfectly good second person plural pronoun. It’s “you”. What it doesn’t have (anymore) is a second person *singular* one. Though I guess one would be perfectly welcome to start using “thou” again if one wanted to. I sometimes do when I want to emphasize the singularity of my interlocutor, and if that person happens to know that “thou” isn’t just a `formal’ version of “you”. Emphasizing plurality is harder. I do use “y’all” for that sometimes, or a non-English pronoun. Ordinarily I just use “you” for both of course.

Young Abe Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Was Washington a Democrat or a Republican?

Pathway Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:18 pm
King Alfred, the word Belial used was “disambiguated.” “You” isn’t optimal because it is used both in the singular and in the plural. Hence it’s ambiguous: you don’t know which context it comes from.

The Democratic and Republican Parties didn’t even exist back then, Young Abe. That’s the point: Washington was more loyal to his country and to his ideals than to a certain political grouping, and thought that was how it should be.

interesting things - kuratkull.com » Washington’ Farewell Address -translated! Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 9:59 am
[…] Randall Munroe at the wonderful blog xkcd took George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796 and painstakingly translated each point into 21st century American English. He said the process was “fun, depressing, inspiring, and a little bit spooky.” The results are amazingly easy to read and understand. The advice Washington had for the nation is still valid today. Link -via Metafilter […]

Peter Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 11:47 am
I especially like the fact that you have successfully crammed over 6000 words of political speak into less than 2800 words that average Joe can understand. That’s a pretty good compression ratio given its a manual process.

Amanda Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Well Done. I enjoyed it emmensly.

Josy Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
On the subject of differentiating singular from plural in second person pronouns, it is not unknown for me to use thee and thou. This doesn’t feel particularly contrived or forced to me.

Reg Reid Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Well done fo’ shizzle my nizzle.

sudont Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Nice job! But I do have some small criticisms

In the original:
8 Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.

“Now, you all love freedom enough that no one thing here is too important.”

I’d go with something more like:
I know you guys already love liberty so much, that I really don’t have to mention it, (or “tell you”, or “bring it up”, or “talk about it”).

I think you missed an important one here in section 12:

In the original:
Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.

Obviously, he’s saying that the west needs to stick with the rest of the country, and not try to secede if it gets powerful on it’s own, or to hook up with a foreign country, cause that’d be dangerous (or “destabilizing”).

And just a little comment. I think that sections 17 and 18 pretty much describe the state we’re in now, with only two parties, which are financed and controlled by the wealthy elite. What a prescient dude that Washington was, eh?

In section 31, I would include the part about how we’re supposed to be a good example to other countries, because pretty soon, we’ll be a great nation.

You know, I’d love to have Geo. Bush II do a book report on this essay, or whatever it would take to get him to comprehend it. He really should be forced to memorize sections 31 through 33, as punishment for the bad things he’s done.

marblespire Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Wow.

Wow.

Can you do lots of these? Can you, like, make a book of these? I mean–you can actually read! So many of our generation just can’t do that (myself included; I got dropped by Jane Austen). We have no hope with stuff like this. But /you/…

Wow.

eschew / links for 2007-02-04 Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
[…] xkcd » Blog Archive » Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech (tags: government history language hacking washington speech Politics america) […]

Mike Williamson Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
without religion, how can we trust anyone who swears an oath?

~~~

While I concur with most, that part is the most outrageous bigotry Christians have come up with. I’ve been cheated, lied to, robbed, screwed over and otherwise mistreated by more “Christians” than any other group.

It doesn’t matter if those individuals “Fail” as good Christians. You can’t tell the good from the bad until it’s too late, and I’ve learned to regard a crucifix as a warning symbol.

Most of my friends are Christians, and I trust them. 90% of convicted criminals are Christians, and I don’t. The moral philosophy a person embraces is not parallel with a claimed religion.

And as a 22 year veteran, sworn to an oath, I take GREAT offense at the suggestion it means less to me than someone with a particular mythology.

When a Christian starts talking about his honesty and faith, I check my wallet. The fact that he thinks that it’s a deciding factor indicates he’s not sure of his own honesty, or he wouldn’t feel a need to say it.

David Says:
February 4th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Hey there. My name’s David Schneider. I live in New York City and I’m in the process of creating a new online magazine of arts and ideas for the 21st century to be called BLOOM [and the Boy Bedlam Review]. I would very much like to feature this in it. We plan to have a soft launch up at the end of this month. Please contact me at dedalus99@earthlink.net. I look forward to hearing from you.

Washington’s farewell address « The Pinetar Rag Says:
February 5th, 2007 at 1:35 am
[…] Click Here to launch it in a new window […]

The Humblefool Thinks (Sometimes) » Another Year, Another Scheme Says:
February 5th, 2007 at 2:58 am
[…] So here I am again, giving this blogging thing a go. What can you expect? Well, I’ll be commenting on: my life in general, comics, the internet, politics, and I’ll even let you have a look into some of my writing. First up? A post translating Lincoln’s Gettysburg address into modern english, a la XKCD’s wonderful Washington’s Address post. Stay tuned! […]

S. Weasel Says:
February 5th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
That was…beautiful. I wish I’d thought of it.

It’s not just that the elaborate language of the 19th C is a problem for the modern ear — it’s also that the language of the Founders has been used and abused for so long that we have emotional responses to words out of keeping with their meaning. We hear “liberty” or “freedom” or “the people” and think, “oh, crap. What’s this guy selling?”

For Want of a Better Title » Blog Archive » Things I find Interesting Says:
February 5th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
[…] Talking about History here’s Washington’s Farewell Address in modern English: This is a good one. Long, but good. It’s really interesting what he says. I’ve read the original, this is pretty close. Heh. Happy reading (if you read it at all you lazy bums). […]

Chondrus Says:
February 5th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
This was really interesting.

Because of some small quirk in my upbringing, somehow, I haven’t had that many problems reading either modern or antiquated political rambles. I’m also being forced to write a term paper about political parties, so… dumdedum… I enjoyed what Common Sense I’ve read, as well as Ben Franklin’s speech about the ratification of the Constitution, (remember the Articles of Confederation? Not those ones.), and was fairly familiar with this…

But that’s not to say that your translation was a bad idea - nor that I’m unusually talented or such like that. I really hope this encourages people to read the original (or originals, ideally); even though some stuff can be confusing, by and large, the meat of the matter is there, and I think that people have way too much of a tendency to glance at something and go: “No way!” - in any subject.

To the die-hards out there: almost every version of Shakespeare I’ve seen come with footnotes, which are essentially “translated” phrases, off to the side or some such place. There’s no way we can realize that “Fut” was an oath. That’s ludicrous. To me, it’s equally ludicrous to expect all of us to retain the language from the 1700s and 1800s. Some might bemoan the lack of real classic teaching, though, in all its olden glory…

but at least our literacy rates are higher now, right? As in, drastically so?

Anyway, before I locate more tangents, thanks for doing this. Getting people thinking is always the first step. ^_^

Life of Alan » links for 2007-02-06 Says:
February 6th, 2007 at 12:24 am
[…] “Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech” [xkcd] (tags: American_History Rhetoric) […]

Original Lee Says:
February 6th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Awesome! I have already forwarded the link to a bunch of teachers. Thank you for doing this.

As far as doing another one, I agree that Paine’s Common Sense would be a good one. But to tie in with what you have done here, I suggest the following essay from the Federalist Papers: Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government.

I think this one is important because we hear a lot of stuff about what the Founders really were trying to do, or about how things are really supposed to work, and I don’t think one can talk about these opinions intelligently unless one understands how we got to the form of government we have today. Just my two cents.

mwace Says:
February 7th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Heh, I thought this would make good fuel for my US Nat’l Gov’t class, so I went formatted a nice copy of the text in google docs. If anyone else want to print out a copy, here’s the link to the document I made:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgsbg466_1hkjkt2

Danny Howard Says:
February 7th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
That was awesome!

You might call it a “vulgarization” since the Vulgate is the vernacular.

It might be fun to do this kind of stuff in a two-column “parallel translation” format.

I once ran through the “Star Spangled Banner” and tried to parse what is a very long run-on sentence in my mind, and I came away with a tear in my eye at the hard-won vision of beauty.

Keep up the beauty and thank you for this translation.

Love,
-danny

arthur ransome Says:
February 8th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
That speech of Washington’s, about divisive factions, makes interesting reading in the light of what happened in the 1860’s. If such troubles were forseen, could they not have tried harder to unite the states from the start?

Christophoro Says:
February 8th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Well done, great job! Almost spooky how so much of this still applies today.

Aristotle Pagaltzis Says:
February 9th, 2007 at 5:33 am
What bewilders me is all these people saying it is “almost spooky” how so much of Washington’s address applies today. How on earth is it spooky? The address is all about human nature; that the same troubles and concerns as they existed in 1800 would plague us today is not the least bit surprising. Anyone with a shred of introspection should be able to realise that.

Kiril Says:
February 9th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Nice! I think yours might actually be better written than the original. Living in the eighteenth century only excuses so much rambling.

ed Says:
February 13th, 2007 at 11:07 am
that was very nice indeed. like nearly everything on xkcd. now i’m no american, and i count myself among the many millions who remain ignorant of the us political system and its history, but this made sense. it clearly made sense then, it makes sense now. what is sad is that many of the original notions and positions are missing from the current world stage.
thanks for your work, it rocks.

Philos Sofia Says:
February 13th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
While I like the idea of “requiring” politicians to read this translated version of GW’s speech, I think what is better is to have them write their _own_ translations. As opposed to giving them reduced readings before they gain political office, why not test them to be sure they are capable of complex ideas? It would also attest to the diplomacy and accuracy of understanding a candidate possesses. That said, this really is a truly inspiring read. It gives me lots of good ideas for assignments to give to my students! :)

Danny Says:
February 13th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Even more exciting, translating your translation to ghetto using gizoogle:
http://sites.gizoogle.com/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblag.xkcd.com%2F

Trotolomus Says:
February 14th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
That dude totally just earned his place on the dollar bill, quarter, and dollar coin.

President Washington’s Address… Updated Says:
February 15th, 2007 at 6:01 am
[…] via XKCD.com’s WebBlag Other stories breaking the silence… […]

Cyerno Says:
February 16th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness… find out about these men, and their beliefs. We are a rare breed, for the short time we have existed our heritage is rich. For example, to be an American you need only to choose. Try moving to Greece or China and becoming a Greek, or Chinese. Sure you can obtain citizenship, but only by blood could you ever be one. Americans respect Human dignity above all else, and have a right to a particular reverence and respect, simply because we are creatures of God. Translations are good, but get the context of the person who wrote it, you will read it in a brighter light. Let Word, and Truth, and Light be your Guide.

Yikes Says:
February 18th, 2007 at 3:36 am
I’ve always been an eye-roller about ‘modern-English’ translations, and this humbled me a bit about it. I’ve never read the original, and this certainly made me want to, though if I’d happened on it before I’m sure I would’ve gone into skim mode immediately and missed the most interesting and prescient things about it.

Warrior Poet: Big ups for your second post, I know how it goes.

NumberThree: Sorry all these non-p/np’ers ruined your little special thing. “More common?” The solution for you should be easy: just go find a bl[o/a]g no one else is reading, cool guy. And then sit back, cross your arms, and try to be satisfied with how cool you are. Loser. I think this here, is the thread you’ll find you belong on.

Brandon Says:
February 18th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
I find it amazing that even back in the dumb days back then, Washington and others had the vision to make sure they wrote in that the government can f**k us when they want….
We can’t go online and amend the constitution, or go to congress and do it ourselves, and if we tried other methods, such as the right to overthrow our corrupt government (especially this fkn moron in office now), then all that would happen is we’d be thrown in prison. I think the only fix to that is for the government to essentially be non-existant, and we should be voting for everything together, not some jack ass elected official.

All Washington did is open the door for us to be screwed, although he also gave us the door itself, to his credit.

And the talk of religion….religion simply holds back man from progressing…he should’ve mentioned the tooth fairy or santa while he was at it.

As far as the translation, there were alot of parts that were unnecessary and most likely were not intended in the fashion it was put in…however, the person who translated this CLEARLY stated this is the case…so nobody should get onto him/her for that.

The only amendment I’m interested in seeing is one added that gives us the right to immediately eliminate any goverment official at all when they are not serving our objectives as a country, which should be to progress ourselves, screw the rest of the world, let them kill each other….in fact, I believe Washington even said something along those lines.

Chris Says:
February 19th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Well done. You got me curious, so I just read through Washington’s original, which is a nice piece of writing. Your version does it justice, though it tends towards summarization. Can’t blame you for that, though–long rhetorical flair isn’t the way we do speeches these days, so a line-for-line “translation” would lack the modern touch.

Bravo.

A Brighter Future Together: The Blog Says:
February 19th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
[…] In my wanderings around the blog sphere, I came across a quite interesting ditty: someone translated Washington’s Farewall Address into modern, ’slang’ English. […]

Cassandra Says:
February 20th, 2007 at 2:09 am
How… frighteningly appropriate to today’s life and times, considering. Thank you.

Packrat Says:
February 20th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
This was exceptionally well done, though I didn’t necessarily agree with a few words used, it’s most likely just a difference in vernacular. This, and you, xkcd, are awesome.

Bariko Says:
February 21st, 2007 at 1:55 am
This was extremely well done. I have nothing but appreciation for your effort. Also, the use of religion in the speech holds for something different then than it does now.

Hell, to quote Jefferson and Adams in their collected correspondence, summarized by myself, since I don’t have the original at hand, “Then it is agreed. In these last years, with all our study on the subject of religion, it can be summarized in four words. Be good and just.”

enjelani Says:
February 21st, 2007 at 10:34 pm
fascinating reading, and entertaining to boot. thanks randall! (awesome, awesome comics too, by the way.)

as there are a few requests now for Common Sense, i thought i’d give a stab at the introduction. i was aiming for newspaper-columnist tone, rather than kickin’-back-with-my-homies. :)

i actually kept several of Paine’s phrases, since i couldn’t find any more succinct way to put it. ironic, given the 18th century’s reputation for labyrinthine sentence construction…

The following ideas may not win any popularity contests. When we accept something badly wrong as normal, it begins to look right; people will even rush to its defense simply for its familiarity. But eventually the dust settles. Time makes more converts than reason.

Whenever there is a long and violent abuse of power, the oppressed will understandably question their leaders’ right to wield that power. The King of England has committed numerous abuses and claimed them as his right. So, separately, has Parliament. The two combined have put terrible pressure on the good people of this country, and so the people have a clear right of their own: to investigate their rulers’ pretensions, and if necessary to liberate themselves of both.

In these pages, I have carefully avoided any compliments or censure of individuals. The wise and the worthy don’t need pamphlets to validate them; the imprudent and the antisocial will eliminate themselves regardless of what I write here.

The cause of America is essentially the cause of humankind itself. The questions we face here, now and in the future, are universal. The destruction of a country with bombs and guns, the declaration of war on basic human rights, the annihilation of the defenders of liberty—these events are of urgent concern to all decent human beings, no matter their political leanings. Yours truly counts himself among them.

P.S. The publication of this new edition was delayed, in case there was any attempt refute the original; but there have been none so far, and since the timeliness of such an attack is long past, I assume that none will.

Who wrote this? you may ask. This is irrelevant—the point is the doctrine itself, not its author. It’s worth mentioning that the author has no party affiliation, and never accepts funds from any public or private interest; his only bias is a love of reason and principle.

Hammers Says:
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I like it. There is one typo I found that you may want to fix. It reads, “Parties are probably gonna look like they’re helping with one popular issue or another, so you’re gonna want support them, but I bet the guys in charge of them will just turn out to be power-hungry assholes who want to run everything.” Other than that the thing was impeccable…

Hammers Says:
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I think I may have spoken too soon. Here are four words that simple don’t exist in the English language:

freeest
necessarially
phoney
incompetences

Please fix.

By the way, I get all the “wannas” and “ain’ts” and “gonnas.” I get those and I think they are cool. I am talking about out-and-out typos in this thing.

P.S. I am just trying to help you because I like this thing a lot and don’t want you to lose readers because of sloppy grammar…

Blake Householder Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 am
Just wanted to say thanks for doing that. It made it a lot more accessible and it was definitely worth reading.

Teacher Friends Says:
February 26th, 2007 at 10:57 am
translation of Washington’s farewell speech/text. I thought it was interesting - and poignant.

marconiplein Says:
February 26th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Oh, for the love of god. Your cartoon regarding Youtube seems awfully prescient in the context of Robotkin and company. The internet is full of loud dumb people. And humorless! It reminds me of a meeting held by anarchists; So much bitching and kvetching that they never bother to actually get things done. All they can do is complain that something isn’t perfect or p.c. enough. Jeesh.

Well, I thought your rendition of his speech was great. And there’s nothing wrong with simplifying a text or making something easier to understand. It’s only academics (and would-be academics) that prize obfuscation for its own sake.

Stevie Says:
February 28th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
(Disclaimer: I’ll admit, I skipped just about all of the comments.)

Just wanted to say thanks for this. It was very interesting, and has motivated me to go and read the original text. Arcane language is easier to sift through if you have a decent grasp of what’s going on to begin with.

marconiplein Says:
February 28th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
kitty Says:
March 1st, 2007 at 1:32 am
i once shot a man in reno and now i regret it because it must have been you, cause your blag hasn’t been updated for ages. oh noes!

The Rodeo » Blog Archive » Del.icio.us Links Says:
March 1st, 2007 at 7:55 pm
[…] Washington?s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday SpeechWorth a read. Easily understood. […]

Haydee Says:
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:31 am
I thought this was great. I’m not going to add my two cents into the linguistic discussion going on here (it’s been had for centuries, so there’s really no point), but I did want to add some historical context to the discussion based on some things people have said. Forgive me for not replying to people directly; it’s late and I don’t want to search through all these replies again. I thought it would be better just to supply a few key points.

One, George Washington is, for the most part, not the one responsible for the convoluted, high-brow diction in the farewell address. The final outline was basically agreed upon by Washington and Hamilton, at which time Hamilton simply wrote out most of it. Washington himself was not brilliant in the academic sense, but he knew that Hamilton was and he trusted him to deliver something worthy of the presidential office. However it was very much Washington’s intention to keep the office of the president on a level above the common “rabble,” so to speak, so it was important to him that the speech sound very educated.

Two, George Washington was also quite a religious man. There are a lot of things in this farewell address that allude to the French revolution (either going on at the time or having recently ended; can’t recall at the moment) and the Jeffersonian party’s support of the wholesale bloodshed that occurred over there. Jefferson was percieved as being atheistic and was the head of the Republican party, whereas Washington and Hamilton belonged to the Federalist persuasion. These two parties are utterly different from what we have today and there is no comparison. In very brief terms, the Federalists were in favor of a strong unified central government, while Jefferson and his crowd were constantly pushing for stronger state power and for the dissolution of most of the Federal government’s power (at this point in history we’re talking about a government structure made up of about 30 bureaucrats… if only they could see us now!) So in part the speech is a warning to those forces that were trying to tear the country apart.

Someone mentioned that if Washington had seen this far ahead, couldn’t he have unified the government a little more and avoided civil war in the future? The answer is no. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, knew from the start of this country that the situation between the north and the south would eventually blow up over the issue of slavery (among other things). There was even a fairly strong abolitionist movement in the Northern states at this time. But for the sake of unifying the country in the face of the revolution, everyone made a conscious decision to just survive the current trial by putting the whole north vs. south issue aside. But everyone knew it wasn’t over. Lots of people were hoping that slavery would simply die out in the meantime, but most knew that wasn’t going to happen. So Washington’s goal was basically to leave a strong structure in tact so that when the crisis did hit, it wouldn’t destroy the country.

Incidentally, I had to learn all of this stuff on my own through reading. Why is it that all we get while we’re in school is some sort of cruddy watered-down version of the events? The details and the reality are so much more interesting. I hated history until I graduated and started discovering that it’s actually really amazing. Thanks to xkcd for opening up this bit of American history.

mostly harmless. Says:
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
a bastardization of George Washington’s farewell address

Ever since I saw this comic posted on one of the many other websites I follow daily, I’ve been reading the xkcd comic via RSS, “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language.” It fits right into my niche of geekiness although I ha…

GENERAL GENOCIDE Says:
March 3rd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
DUDE

THAT ROCKS!!!
. NOW IF U COULD ONLY REWRITE HISTORY AND PUT SOMETHING IN THERE ABOUT GENECIDING THE GODLESS MUSLIMS. I’M TRYING TO GAIN SUPPORT FOR THE CAUSE BUT I’M NOT NEARLY AS CREDIBLE AS UNCLE GEORGE. IF ONLY HE KNEW AT THE TIME THAT THOSE MO’FO’S WERE SO DIRTY, HE CERTAINLY WOULD OF DECLARED THEIR DESTUCTION A PRIMO PRIORITY
THANKS

Haydee Says:
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:00 pm
General Genocide: Methinks you missed the point of… everything.

GENERAL GENOCIDE Says:
March 4th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Dear Haydee
I did get the point. But the fact is we’re not a tiny nation trying to make it in a much larger world any more. Through the concepts of our founding fathers and by the grace of god we overcame the odds and became the predominant power. Now if we don’t want, or can’t handle the responsiblity of being the greatest world superpower then we should resururect the NAZI’s and let them handle all the world’s problems. I think we all know what Hittler would of done to the MUD PEOPLE had the 9/11 attacks happened in a victorious third reich. WE EARNED THE TITLE BELT, NOW WE MUST DEFEND IT. AND THE NUMBER ONE CONTENDER IS THE EVIL ISLAMIC PUKES. GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT A BIG FAT NUKE. GENOCIDE THE MUSLIMS

I R Says:
March 4th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Very well done!

Gleeful Gecko » Blog Archive » George Washington’s Farewell Address In Today’s Speech Says:
March 5th, 2007 at 9:28 am
[…] XKCD is a great little web comic that I discovered today has a nice little blog attached to it. In January they posted up a great little translation of George Washington’s Farewell Address that I think does a pretty good job of translating it into today’s simpler form of speech. I actually just reread the original yesterday and it isn’t an easy read, but I have to say that Washington does a pretty good job of laying out some very good basic principles for the country to try to live up to. Still a long speech, even in the simpler form, but it is well worth a read. […]

Bryan Says:
March 5th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Language
~~~~~~~~
Anyone who thinks Washington is hard to read should try Beowulf in its original Old English. I gave up after 25 lines, and I was comparing with a translation (and just stuck to the translation).

Of course the reasons for the sometimes incomprehensibility are different–the GW speech just takes some getting used to…whereas for Beowulf, I think my knowledge of German was as relevant to Old English as Modern English. (if you think of Shakespeare or even Chaucer when I write “Olde English”, think again)

This speech in particular is more challenging to me than Chaucer, just because it is so rambling. I guess I have Hamilton to thank! And here I already mildly disliked the Federalists!

Religion
~~~~~~~~
http://www.answers.com/topic/george-washington-and-religion

What’s on that page about religion sounds milder than Randall’s translation. But then they hadn’t seen nihilism or world war two in his day, so I don’t blame them. I think it’s become clear by now that having some sort of ethical foundation with many similarities is both good, and possible without religion.

I’d consider that more important than mythology or which advanced extraterrestrial (by definition the creator of Earth is extraterrestrial, nobody go UFO on me! (”UFO” also being taken to mean more than what it abbreviates, most of the time)).

But look at the last paragraph on this page here :http://www.antisectes.net/religion-defined.htm
‘Religion’ clearly did not mean the same thing as it now does. I reiterate what I already wrote.

Misc
~~~~~~~
And I’m not (eat that, “I ain’t” crowd!) surprised by people largely ignoring Washington’s words…see the comments about literacy, etc. And while the politicians and elites have generally always been literate, they’re also those with the most to gain by ignoring Washington in favor of their own self-interest. So it goes.

Brandon: I don’t think Washington opened the door for the government to screw us…in many ways he helped make it less efficient at screwing us (that being its natural tendency: screwing us) by supporting an experiment in internal checks and balances (I know they’ve begun to fail since then, sucks).

The nice thing about this ‘translation’ was that I could give it a quick read. Getting into the original is tougher–I still have almost no interest. Kudos.

-B-

sergant slaughter Says:
March 5th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
outfckin standing
I must say that was great.
I also must say that as much as i hate to admit it general genocide has a point. Let’s kill all them muslims. They’re all crazier than brittany spears on acid. So let’s rally the troops and genocide the muslim morons that have killed too many of my brothers in arms!!! GENOCIDE THE MUSLIMS.that is my new battle cry.

John Cowan Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
An excellent piece of work, xkcd. You mentioned upstream in the comments that you’d like to see the Gettysburg Address translated into a particular style. Here’s a version I published some years ago on the Usenet group alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb, which is dedicated to constrained writing: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&selm=328A39D5.61F1%40ccil.org

Prof Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Superb. I wish I’d seen it in time to send it to my son before his history exam today.

I have also enjoyed reading the comments so far. It occurs to me that people who are debating the notion of “translating” the original text might be interested in Douglas Hofstadter’s “Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language”, which has a lot of truly fascinating discussion about the whole idea of translation, including translation “between frames of reference — languages, cultures, modes of expression, or indeed between one person’s thoughts and another” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Ton_beau_de_Marot).

I can see both points of view, in that the translation can’t help losing something from the original, but on balance I think the enormous value of the ideas more than makes up for some loss of the emotional context and style of the speech. Yes, the emotional context and style do matter a great deal, in terms of understanding the historical perspective, but it’s the *ideas* that still have the potential (call me a cockeyed optimist) to make a difference today — if only we could get more people today reading and thinking about the ideas.

Many thanks for writing this. I hope it turns into required reading.

Alberich Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I loved it. It’s not quite so ambitious as the Bubbamal translation of the old norse Havamal…

http://www.ragweedforge.com/havamal.html vs. http://www.lokis-laughter.com/jokes/bubbamal.htm

Charlie Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Your success is impressive. You have awakened interest and discussion in a critical area. May the waves continue to spread. It is always more difficult to create than to criticize, and your interpretation required considerable creative effort. Congratulations! Outstanding job.

Thank you for your effort. Clearly it is appreciated.

warrl Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
On losing something in translation

Beowulf is still readable… IF you know the pronunciations of the letters, which have some differences from modern English, and read it aloud and listen to yourself… barely. To the extent that it is idiomatic rather than direct, you’ll miss almost everything.

Chaucer is still readable silently… barely. You’ll miss most of the idioms and slang - I know just enough of them to be uncertain if the nun was of the sort that is known for the habit they wear, or the sort that is known for the habit of taking it off.

We think we understand Shakespeare, who at least spoke and wrote what is considered modern English, but we miss a lot of the idiomatic stuff. Even Bowlder, who was explicitly looking for stuff that might possibly be sexual, missed a lot of the sexual stuff.

And it isn’t just English. The Hindu priests protected some of their sacred Sanskrit scriptures from being translated into more-modern language, even as their language evolved to the point that nobody had any clue what the Sanskrit words meant; one good thing the British did for India was to re-decipher the sacred tongue and confirm that the priests weren’t ceremonially reciting a grocery list.

(In the book “A Canticle for Liebowitz”, an ancient sacred writing actually is a grocery list…)

I’ve done a few translations (not many and probably not well), and read both the original and the translation of even more works; and to those who say that translation invariably loses something from the original: damn straight.

(Anyone who reads “Asterix and Obelix” in English is missing at least half the puns.)

The alternative, though, is to lose everything.

ben wolfson Says:
March 7th, 2007 at 3:16 am
Mad Magazine actually did something like this to the Gettysburg Address already, back in the 50s.

the man Says:
March 9th, 2007 at 2:23 am
man thanks for this, i have an essay due tomorrow over this, it’s 12:30 at night (or in the morning) and i read two paragraphs of the actual farewell address before i thought of looking up a translation. I wasn’t looking forward to reading that. you are badass.

axolotl Says:
March 11th, 2007 at 3:54 am
To be honest I’d have to say that I think Robotkin had a point: this, like most ‘translations’ of its ilk, felt pretty awkward and forced to me. The fact that he expressed it in a smug and antagonistic way was a pity, and I’d just like to get it clear that I think it was a good effort, and that producing a version that *didn’t* annoy me somewhat would probably be near impossible. Also, there is a vast gap between what sounds natural when spoken and what looks good on paper. Copying down almost any conversation or improvised monologue verbatim would most likely produce a pretty unreadable piece of writing, so some slack must be cut.

Pat Ontheback Says:
March 14th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Excellent work, xkcd!

Some rebuttals on your behalf, and a skeptical comment:

(1) Disregard those complaining about awkwardness or an inconsistency in dialect. I believe Pareto’s 80/20 rule came into effect here. If you got to the meat of the issue (ie, the 80%) in a “couple of hours, give or take” (the 20%), then I calculate it would have taken you an additional 8 hours, give or take, to put a hard-copy publication polish to it. Not worth it: your rewording is transparently clear as is, and even if you had put in more time, there would still be critics.

(2) Those expressing preference for the original are a fringe group. I have a somewhat-more-than-passing interest in political philosophy, and I cheerfully admit that, having struggled through several original paragraphs to judge the accuracy of your interpretation, I can’t imagine choking down that turgid archaic version when the modern easy-to-swallow version is available. Note also the comments that suggest the new version be given to current politicians, implying very clearly that modern politicians are not a suitable audience for the original.

Some comments refer to the passion that gets leached out when the original is rephrased. Basically, the overwhelming feeling I have when I reach the end of one of the original sentences is relief. Don’t forget, being solemnly passionate about something doesn’t make you any more right; it’s still only the ideas that matter.

(3) And finally, I want to return for a moment to commenters calling for current politicians to read the new version, I suppose with the expectation that the scales would fall from their eyes. I confess to being a skeptic. While there may be sincere politicians who have been led astray by issue marketing, I believe they are easily outnumbered by insincere politicians maximizing their own gain by underhandedly managing their constituencies. That’s how they can pass laws to make it easier to intimidate you for objecting to their policies, or to prosecute a war that has trasferred the better part of $1,000,000,000,000 from taxpayers’ pockets to Halliburton’s. George Washington’s exhortations would fall on deaf ears.

To recap, xkcd - you’ve done an awesome job in drawing attention in an accessible way to a smart man’s warning about the dangers of the unchecked political animal. Note that in 200 years, Eisenhower’s “Military/Industrial Complex” speech will be ripe for an update: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

Havoc Jack Says:
March 15th, 2007 at 1:20 am
I find it sort of amusing how people offer their unqualified support for what Washington says… except for when he’s talking about religion. He’s perfectly right and eerily accurate… except when he dissagrees with me. Then I just wish he never said it.

I do think it should be noted that just because someone says they have religion doesn’t mean they actually do. Watch what the people do, not what they say. No matter how many times the used car salesman says to me that he’s a Christian, I’m still going to look under the hood. That’s also something you should know as a responsible voter; you can’t trust someone just because they say they’re a Christian anymore than you can trust them just because they say they’re a Democrat.

Mike Stone, I appreciate your essay on right and wrong, but it sort of doesn’t fit into the text of the document. As in, we reduced the wordage by half everywhere except this one point. I sort of think of it like a footnote in a Shakespeare play; necessary to explain the original use of the word, but it doesn’t really fit into the original text.

(While I’m on it, that whole translation thing? Your original copy is still there, you can ignore the translated one if you like. Personally I like the feel of older english as opposed to newer. But think of it this way, if the translated edition means more people have read (and mostly understood) the document, then it’s probably a good thing.)

And I agree with Paton Theback on the showing it to politicians thing. You point out the bits about avoiding party politics, and the politician will gravely tell you that although he personally detests the system, he has to work with it because otherwise he hasn’t got a hope of being elected. And if you got the entire party together to discuss it, and even if you get them all to agree with what any lone poltician would tell you- (It’s safe to tell you that individually, there’s no hope of reform only on the word of one member of the party, but the group is a different matter) they will tell you that they can’t dispand the party, because the other guys won’t. I mean sure we could disarm all out nuclear weapons, but that leaves us vulnerable to a Russian sneak attack.

Viewpoint from a US Virgin Island » Washington’s Farewell Address Says:
March 18th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
[…] found this very interesting translation of George Washington’s Farewell Address. It is on a blog attached to Web Comic named XKCD. The writing is in the more modern vernacular and […]

Matt Says:
March 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Reading the real thing at school absolutely sucked. Thank you for translating GW’s farewell address into modern speech that normal idiot school kids, like myself, could truly relate to.

blackpiratepezz Says:
April 5th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I don’t think Washington would’ve thought religion was vital to morals if he was around today, but it’s like he’s clairvoyant, otherwise.

Alex Says:
April 6th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
RoBotkin: “Well, I guess such is the burden I bear being raised on at least semi-proper use of the English language.”

You should learn to take some things a little less seriously, and get off your fucking high horse.

xkcd is a very intelligent comic, and his posts down here have surely demonstrated his ability to write grammatically correct sentences. Do you go around criticizing everything on the internet that’s not fit for an encyclopedia?

I consider myself an expert with the English language, and I quite liked this, especially the “sup” and “get machines from the north and junk”. I thought it was pretty funny.

Oh, and xkcd, I first found your comic because of the proximity-to-cat one, and I must say: thank you for making a webcomic that is consistently intelligent and hilarious. ESPECIALLY the cat one. It’s so true!

jake Says:
April 13th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Yea boi!!!! Word up homie G!!!!

nave.notnilc Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Is this really shorter than the actual thing?

JSomething Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I am taking a basic English course this quarter, and the focus for the first half (for papers we’re writing and articles we’re reading) is the war on Iraq. The past couple days we’ve been talking about the war in context of our constitution, and I wonder whether you’d mind if I printed off a few copies of this (your translation) to pass around tomorrow or Monday. If you say it’s alright, I’ll copy it into word and plop full APA and MLA citations at the end.

links for 2007-05-01 » mhinze.com Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 11:20 am
[…] Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech (tags: politics history washington xkcd) […]

Email « What Would Turtle Do Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:44 am
[…] I spent the other half of the day reading the Constitution. It’s a brilliant piece of work, but I’d love to see it translated like XKCD did for Washington’s Farewell speech. […]

Alexandra Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Wow… that was a lot of comments. I think I read them all… but my brain shut down for part of it and only my eyes were working so I’m not sure.

I really enjoyed reading this translation. Thanks much xkcd for the fun read, that is if you’re still reading the comments on this extensively commented on post. If you’re not well then… radish?

To all the people who complained about the ‘proper’ use of English… get o’er yourselves and shuttha. That is all.

Jach Says:
May 5th, 2007 at 3:48 am
Awesome translation (I’ll probably send it to my teachers and possibly the school newspaper since a lot of unenlightened people read that). If I can understand it very late at night, it must be simple! I think I might try to tackle the original some other day, too…

As to the argument on “advanced language is better than common dribble”, what exactly is advanced language? I define advanced language as language that is not used in every-day speech. If everyone grew up using the word “parity” and some day came across the word “equal” they would probably have the same response to most Americans who don’t know their old Latin roots when they see the word “sordid” as opposed to the familiar “dirty.” (Might be bad examples, but meh.) The same goes with math. If we all learned that “if b^x = y then the logb(y) = x” in Elementary school instead of 1+2 = 3 then when logarithms come up later they wouldn’t be so confusing, but the dropped topic of addition would cause some pain. :/ (I couldn’t make this post for example unless they finally taught addition to me.) Anyway, if you want everyone to use your “proper English”, start teaching it to younger people in place of standard English (probably robbing them of any friends since none can understand the other unless you teach a large group), or choose a more perfect language that isn’t a grammatical mess with a ton of exceptions.

TK008 Says:
May 7th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Now I realize that very few people will actually read this because its from a while ago but I think this is great.

I still maintain that George was just a rich bastard trying to preserve his own financial interests … but that doesn’t really conflict with any of this. In fact I guess it proves him to be smart… if not charitable and compassionate. He did ask for forgiveness though.

newsong Says:
May 16th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I made a comment to say this is recommended reading on my blog today. Very interesting.

Regarding religion - the original text is “Whatever may be conceded… reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

What he’s saying here is not necessarily that religion as an entity should be encouraged, but the principles of morality that are espoused by it are indispensible and should not be excluded from national culture/politics etc. and I kind of like his wording.

Snig Says:
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Very Cool. Partway through, the voice reading it in my head started using Jimmy Stewart’s voice. I think it would carry more resonance with people if it was read in his voice. It might inspire Americans to rebuild a more
just society. Someone please download his movies, splice his words and phrasings into a voice synthesizer, record the program doing this speech, then upload to Youtube. Or else someone who can do a good impersonation record it into a tape player, record thousands of copies onto cassette tapes and drop them around parking lots across the country. Get started, you have until Sunday.

renee christine Says:
May 27th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
wherever did you find the time to do this??

oh and by the way
i adore you, and xkcd.

Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech (Inelegant Blog) Says:
June 10th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
[…] http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/01/29/washingtons-farewell-address-translated-into-the-vernacular/ “I’ve often heard that Washington’s ‘Farewell Address’ — the speech he sent out (in written form) to a bunch of papers at the end of his second term — is important…”Tags: politics, history, speech, washington, translation, usa, government, humour(del.icio.us history) if (typeof window.Delicious == “undefined”) window.Delicious = {}; Delicious.BLOGBADGE_MANUAL_MODE = true; […]

Invisible Queen Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Two things Washington didn’t know about the future: That America would become the dominant world power and that organized religion would become outdated. I’m pretty sure he knew everything else, though. :)

Mike Stone makes a wonderful explanation of what Washington meant when he said “religion”. It made me want to desecularize society!

…Posting in an epic blag, 4chan style. . .

rowery Says:
August 14th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I forgot to mention - I love this. It seems more approachable, without “sanitizing” the original (as Rev. Bowdler did with Shakespeare’s works).

Epsy Says:
September 4th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I must say, I throughly enjoyed reading this, infact it was the first thing in a long time that I began reading and then couldn’t stop. I did however have to in the middle, as to not be late to my (ironically enough) political science class! Ironically again, the class today was on bipartisan politics! It was quite the odd experiece (until I fell asleep for boredom and inability to understand our Sudanese TA’s dialect). In any event, I agree more with the person who said we should force our politicians to do there own translation, for that would be a greater measure of their political prowess and critical thinking abilities.

I read all of these comments…I must say I was dissapointed with many people for bothering to comment at all when they weren’t commenting on the actual piece but rather other peoples comments. I however am now trapped in the fact that I too am doing that. In the words of Admiral Ackbar…It’s a Trap!

Sorry…I didn’t get much sleep last night. I blame xkcd, but not in a bad way.

In any event, good job, and I will continue to be an avid reader of your non-math based submissions…cause good lord…they make me feel down right stupid. lol

domeny Says:
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:27 am
My favorite part was definitely the “sup”. It still tickles me.

snoop dog Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 8:52 am
It made me hungry for sex!

north-european-girl Says:
October 16th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Love your translation and understand it as well :) great work, it must have taken you long time

Alex Says:
October 16th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
MUCH THANKS. this helps a lot

i have an essay on this paper due tomorrow, and im gonna email this to everyone

Megan Says:
October 17th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Thanks, Alex. Unfortunately I didn’t check my email before I handed my paper in. This soooooo would have helped though.

A Bastardization of George Washington’s Farewell Address and the one-handed keyboard « Angel Says:
October 19th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
[…] http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/01/29/washingtons-farewell-address-translated-into-the-vernacular/ […]







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