Word: basic
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...eleventh message to Congress on the State of the Union, President Roosevelt gave assurance that "there were no secret treaties or political or financial commitments" made at Cairo and Teheran, declared that a basic essential for future peace is "a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all nations" and proposed for the U.S. an "economic bill of rights" which showed that the New Deal is far from dead in the heart of its great sponsor. But the big news of his message-read to Congress by clerks while he nursed his vanishing...
...effectiveness of teaching through Basic can be proved by two examples, says Richards. The Chinese Air Force, being trained in California, spends five weeks learning English before they can be taught to fly by American instructors. The fact that they have learned to carry our orders necessitating split-second reactions in simple proof that Basic is an effective way of teaching English quickly...
Richards also pointed to the program at the Great Lakes Naval Training, Sation recently. The Bluejacket's Manual, Bible of the Navy, was put into Basic English, and a group of 15 to 20 sailors studied the simplified version. They made better scores than did those who used the standard text, and they learned it more rapidly...
Richards transcribed Plato's "Republic" into Basic nearly two years ago, and it is now being sold to service men in cheap editions. The simplified form makes Plato's ideas easier to understand, and more of it can be covered in an hour than in the original translations. Richards believes that technical books, income tax forms, and other generally turgid writing, can be improved through the use of Basic...
...Basic English's original purpose of facilitating international communication is still most important, Richards affirms, but new application are being found which may expedite the use of our own language...