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Randall Munroe is known for his comic series XKCD , which offers hilarious and insightful commentary on technology, geek culture, and more. Awhile back, Mr. Munroe published something very different: an annotated blueprint of the Saturn V rocket that took men to the moon.
This was no normal blueprint. Munroe added an interesting constraint: He could only use the 1,000 most-used English words for his annotations. This constraint forced him to think carefully about how to capture these complex mechanisms and features using a completely different style of communication.
See the entire blueprint
Your Turn: The UpGoer5 Text Editor
This constraint - communicating with only the 1,000 most-used words sparked a small movement. People began to challenge each other to present their work using this method, which is now known as “UpGoer5”.
In fact, a website soon appeared with a text editor for evaluating what words are in the top 1,000 list.
The Challenge
Can you describe your work using only the top 1,000 most-used English words? The text editor will show you what's in or out. Give it a try !
This post is based on a bonus chapter in our Explanation Master Course .