the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Several vocabulary lists have been published by researchers.
These lists are based on samples of published texts in English, and (less often) samples of recorded spoken language.
The lists differ slightly according to the sources chosen, but they are very reliable.
The items listed may represent more than one actual word; they are lemmas.
For instance the entry "be" contains within it the occurrences of "is", "was", "be" and "are".
The top 100 lemmas account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.
The Reading Teachers Book of Lists claims that the first 25 words make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and that the first 100 make up about one-half of all written material.
One of the first readability tests, the Dale–Chall formula, used a vocabulary list.
It counted the number of listed words in a passage, and applied a formula which gave a grade level.
It was used to rate textbooks for grade levels in US school districts.
It is easy, in principle, to use a vocabulary list as part of a computer-based readability measure.
The list is organised as a look-up table.
The percentage of listed words in a passage gives the data for the formula, and the user is presented with a grade level.
Word length
This is called an index, or a proxy.
This is because word length is correlated with word frequency, and word frequency is correlated with word difficulty.
Longer words are, on average, harder than short words.
Word length is measured by counting the letters in each word, or by counting syllables.
Since most syllables have one vowel, some computer programs count vowels per average word.
A few tests measure the percentage of words on a list; the list is based on the known frequency of words in a language.
Sentence difficulty
Sentence difficulty is usually measured by sentence length.
This again is an index, because longer sentences are, on average, harder than short sentences.
Computers count the number of words between full stops, but this is a second-best method.
Humans can judge whether a semi-colon or colon should count as the end of a sentence for testing purposes.
Since both factors may vary independently of each other, the best prediction is gained by devising a formula with makes use of both indices.
What this means is that a single score is produced for a text, and that score is looked up on a table or graph.
That tells you how difficult the text is in terms of either a) an American school grade level, or b) an artificial scale of 0% to 100%.
Either way is effective.
What really makes a difference is:
Methods using both indices are more reliable than methods using only one index.
Direct measurement
It is possible to get a good prediction by getting a group of subjects to read through a passage, followed by multiple-choice questions.
Even better is a method called cloze, where subjects fill in blanks on a text they have not seen before.
The percentage of correctly completed blanks is an outstandingly good predictor of text difficulty.
Naturally, this kind of direct measure requires subjects and a skilled experimenter.
It also requires the prior preparation of texts suitable for the chosen sample of subjects.
The method is therefore too expensive for widespread use.
Types of tests
Tests on subjects
Multiple-choice questions
Cloze test
Test on texts
Two-variable formulae
Dale–Chall readability formula
Flesch Reading Ease (Flesch Readability Test)
Flesch–Kincaid Reading Level (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Index)
Fry readability formula
Gunning Fog Index
Spache
One-variable formulae
Fog Index
SMOG Index
Use on Wikipedia
"The authors concluded that the readability of online patient information for ‘liposuction’ and ‘breast reconstruction’ is ‘too difficult’ for many patients as the readability scores of all 20 websites (10 each) far exceeds that of a 6th-grade reading level.
The average score for the most popular ‘liposuction’ websites was determined equal to 13.6-grade level.
As a comparison ‘tattoo information’ scored at the 7.8-grade level".
"Health care information available at the most popular websites for ‘breast reconstruction’ had an average readability score of 13.4, with 100% of the top 10 websites providing content far above the recommended 6th grade reading level.
Wikipedia.org readability scores aligned at the higher readability range for both terms, with scores above the 14 grade level for ‘liposuction’, and above grade 15 for ‘breast reconstruction’".
Is Wikipedia too difficult?
comparative analysis of Wikipedia, Simple Wikipedia and Britannica.
Writing Sample Analyzer , reports on the Flesch Reading Ease, Fog Scale Level, and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level for a given piece of text.
Online Textual Difficulty Calculator - reports ARI, SMOG, Flesch–Kincaid Readability Test, Coleman–Liau Index, Gunning–Fog Index, etc.
BYU Words and phrases: highlights text.
The word comes originally from the Greek Theatron, meaning roughly, 'a place to behold'.
In American English, the word 'theater' can mean either a place where films are shown (this is also called a cinema) or a place where live stage plays are performed.
In British English, 'theatre' means a place where live plays are performed.
Some people, both English and American, use the spelling 'theatre' to mean a place where live plays are performed, and the spelling 'theater' to mean a cinema.
'Theatre' can also mean the business of putting on plays.
An actor might say "I am in the theatre business", or a writer might say "I write for the theatre", meaning that they write plays, rather than writing for movies or television shows.
The first people we know created plays were the Ancient Greeks, about the year 500 B.C. They divided plays into two kinds: tragedy and comedy.
This division is still used today.
The best known Ancient Greek writers of plays are Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes.
Some of their plays survived, and are still performed today.
These ancient Greek plays were performed outdoors in large amphitheatres, so that many people could see them.
There were contests among the playwrights (people who write plays are called playwrights) and the winner would get a prize.
The Greeks had many brilliant ideas.
They used mechanical devices like trap doors and the machina: a crane for winching gods on and off the stage (hence 'Deus ex machina').
They had a Greek chorus that offered information to help the audience follow the performance.
The chorus comments on themes, and shows how an audience might react to the drama.
Illustrations on vases show helmet-like masks, covering the entire face and head, with holes for the eyes and a small aperture for the mouth, plus a wig.
The mask was to ‘melt’ into the face and allow the actor to vanish into the role.
Therefore, onlookers did not think about the actor, but thought about the character.
In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church began to use theatre as a way of telling the stories from the Bible to people who did not know how to read.
They wrote Mystery Plays, where each part of the Bible story would be a play put on by a different group of people.
They wrote miracle plays which were about the lives of the saints.
They wrote morality plays which taught the audiences how to live a good Christian life.
Commedia dell'arte plays
In the 1500s, groups of actors toured around Italy performing comic plays to entertain townspeople.
These plays were called Commedia dell'arte, and different stories would be created around the same group of characters.
Often the spoken lines would be made up by the actors for each performance.
Other kinds of plays called Neoclassical Dramas and Neoclassical Comedies were also popular in Italy and in France at this time.
These plays were written to copy the style of the plays from Ancient Greece and Rome.
Elizabethan theatre
At the end of the sixteenth century (before 1600), the traveling actors began to perform in fixed theatre buildings.
This was the period when William Shakespeare wrote.
He lived from 1564 to 1616.
At that time, in England, women were not allowed to perform, so male actors would play female characters.
His theatre was in London, England.
It was called The Globe Theatre.
It was an outdoor theatre and plays were performed in the daytime for large audiences.
His plays were very popular and many are still performed today.
Many people believe Shakespeare was one of the best playwrights (a writer of plays).
Plays including Shakespeare's were banned during the Protectorate'.
After that, many more were written and acted.
Plays from the 1900s
After World War II, playwrights in Europe and the United States began doing plays in a new style called "Theatre of the Absurd."
After seeing the horrors of war, these playwrights felt that all their old values had been destroyed.
Playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Harold Pinter, and Jean Genet wrote plays that are considered to be "Theatre of the Absurd."
The "Theatre of the Absurd" plays have some of the same ideas that are found in the philosophy (a way of thinking) called existentialism.
Existentialism is very different from many other philosophies.
Most religions and philosopies say that human life has a meaning (or a purpose).
The philosophy of existentialism is that human life does not have a meaning (or a purpose).
When something has no meaning, it is "absurd". (
absurd means means silly and meaningless.)
The plays written in this style make people think about questions like "what is it like to be a person in the world?"
and "what does it mean for a person to be free?"
They are often filled with sad emotions, such as worry, fear, and thoughts about death.
Theatre breaks
Theatre breaks are a form of short holiday, based around viewing a theatrical convention show.
Theatre breaks tend to include a nights hotel accommodation included in the price.
A test is a way of checking something to see if it is true, or false, or if it is edible or not.
If something can be tested, or finishes the tests correctly, it is testable.
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines a test as: "a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something".
A test is different from an experiment: Before a test is done, there is an expected result.
The test is performed, to show this result.
In an experiment, the outcome is open.
Very often, tests are performed as part of an experiment.
In software engineering, a test is used to see if the software system can do what it should.
Software is tested before it is released.
Alpha testing is where software developers check the software for bugs.
Software can also be checked for quality and usability.
Beta testing is done by groups of users.
Tests of cars and other vehicles include a crash test.
The car is put under severe conditions to see what will make it fail, or deliberately crashed to measure the damage.
Other machines can also be crash tested.
Crash test dummies can be used instead of humans.
They are placed in the car seat to see if a human in the crash would have been injured or killed.
People are tested to see what they have learned.
This is often called an assessment or examination.
In learning, a test item is a question, or set of questions.
Many people think tests are valuable.
They believe tests:
are a quick and fair way of judging a test taker's performance
enable predictions about test takers to be made
allow selection
improve performance by highlighting areas that need work.
However, academic tests are not perfect measures.
Tests could only partly measure a student’s memory and maybe their understanding.
The test would only be about a small part of the subject, and only at that moment in time.
People, animals and plants can also be tested for illnesses.
For example, a blood test can be used to check for disease.
Tests and Experiments: Similarities and Differences
A time horizon is a future point in time when something must be "done" (a "deadline") or will be "over" (a "time limit").
Either way, the matter will be closed when the time horizon is reached.
end of day, usually meaning the working day;
the weekend;
end of month;
fiscal quarter;
end of school term;
end of calendar year
and end of fiscal year.
Sports, for example football (soccer) and basketball, often have time limits.
Baseball and others do not, which sometimes causes problems.
It may be used to try to achieve fairness in some system of ethics.
For instance, if poor people and rich people are debating something, a time limit may be imposed so that the rich people cannot keep debating until the poor people have to go to work, and lose.
Time limits are very important in accounting so that everyone can report their results (for tax and investment purposes) at the same time.
This in turn creates deadlines for the accountant and those reporting.
However, the deadline is imposed by an authority, whereas the time limit is imposed by a system.
So there can be slack in a deadline, so that results do not have to be reported always very fast.
For example, in the United States of America, the end of the calendar year on December 31 is the time limit for taxes, but the deadline for reporting is April 15.
Sometimes the government allows more time, as it did for the families of those who were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a country in East Asia.
Not to be confused with the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (Taiwan) once governed all of China (from 1911 - 1949), but relocated to the island of Taiwan following a Chinese civil war.
In the years since, the PRC has become the recognized government of China (replacing the ROC at the United Nations in 1971), and the status of the ROC has been left unclear.
The region of China of Taiwan comprises the island of Taiwan plus nearby islands (Pescadores islands and parts of Fujian).
Taiwan is located southeast of the People's Republic of China's mainland, south of Japan, and north of the Philippines.
The capital is Taipei.
Most people living in Taiwan (called Taiwanese) are Han.
Taiwan has three large Han groups.
They speak different dialects of Chinese and their ancestors came from different places: the Southern Fujianese (from China's Fujian Province), the Hakka (from China), and Mainlanders (from Mainland China after 1948).
In 1517, A discovery ship of Portuguese saw this island and names it "Ilha Formosa", or "Beautiful Island" in Portuguese.
17th century: From 1624 until 1661 Dutch colonize the southern part of Formosa and established a colonial administration in Fort Zeelandia, and the Spanish colonize the north and established a colonial administration in Fuerte Santo Domingo or Fort Santo Domingo.
The Dutch eventually defeated the Spaniards and took full control of Formosa.
A Chinese general named Koxinga, defeated the Dutch at the Siege of Fort Zeelandia.
1860: Taiwan becomes a treaty port following the Treaty of Tientsin, opening the island to contact with the world.
1874: Japan invaded southern Taiwan, seemingly to "punish" the aborigines there for the murder of ship-wrecked Okinawan fishermen in 1871, but actually to establish a colony.
Japanese forces withdraw later in the year after the Meiji and Qing empires nearly went to war.
1884-1885: Taiwan is blockaded by French navy during the Sino-Franco War.
1895: Qing China lost the First Sino-Japanese War and gave Taiwan to Japan permanently.
1911: The Xinhai Revolution ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China.
1927: Start of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) party and the Communist Party of China (CCP).
The war would later be put on hold, so the two sides could fight Japan together during World War II.
1945: Japan lost in World War II to U.S. and gave up Taiwan permanently.
1947: Taiwanese widely protest governmental corruption under the Nationalists.
Chiang Kai-shek sends in the army to restore order, killing tens of thousands.
Some Taiwanese began the Taiwan independence movement.
The Nationalists (KMT) lose the civil war, which resumed after World War II, and escape to the island of Taiwan.
They set up Taipei as the temporary capital of Republic of China (ROC).
The Communist Party of China (CCP) establishes Beijing as the capital of The People's Republic of China (PRC).
1951: Japan signs the Treaty of San Francisco (1951) with U.S.
1971: Taiwan is expelled from the United Nations and replaced with the PRC
1979: The KMT government jails many democracy activists who opposed it (Kaohsiung Incident).
1986: The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is formed; it is the first party to form in the ROC other than the KMT.
It remains illegal for the first year, but the KMT government does not try to ban it.
1987: The KMT government lifts the martial law after almost 40 years.
1988: Lee Teng-hui (KMT) became president after Chiang Ching-kuo is dead.
1995: Lee Teng-hui (KMT) became the first president elected by people.
2000: Li Shui-bian (DPP) became president.
2000: Chen Shui-bian (DPP) became president.
2004: Chen Shui-bian is re-elected after a controversial assassination attempt, in which many KMT-supporters believed, was staged by Chen.
However, after unwillingness to cooperate about his medical records the investigation was inconclusive.
2008: Former president Chen Sui-bian and his wife are arrested for corruption and money laundering.
2008: Ma Ying-jeou (KMT) was elected as the president of the Republic of China and thus creating a change of political parties for the second time.
2009: Kaohsiung hosts the 2009 World Games.
2016: Tsai Ing-wen (DPP) was elected as the first female president of Taiwan.
2019: same sex marriage was legalized
Status of Taiwan
There are two Chinese governments in the world: The People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC).
Today, in reality, the PRC government controls mainland China, and the ROC government governs Taiwan.
The ROC government governed most of China mainland from 1911 to 1949, before losing control of China mainland to the PRC.
The ROC constitution still claims ownership of all of China, however in recent years this is rarely mentioned.
Although Taiwan's status prevents it from participating in some international organizations, polls show that most Taiwanese prefer to keep things as they are (referred to as the status quo), rather than declare formal independence (and risk inviting an attack by communist China), or to be "reunified" with China.
Most countries of the world recognize the People's Republic of China as China.
Although Taiwan is not recognized by the UN as a sovereign nation, most countries still have close economic and cultural relations with Taiwan.
Countries often set up de-facto embassies in Taiwan—officially non-government organizations—that perform the same functions as an embassy.
In 1992, the ROC and PRC agreed to a Consensus that there was only "one China" but that both sides could continue to disagree on what that meant.
In March 2004, China's government passed a law called the Anti-Secession Law.
The law requires the Chinese military to invade Taiwan immediately if they declare independence.
Tsai Ing-wen, the elected President of Taiwan, says Taiwan is already an independent country and does not need to declare independence.
President of communist China, President Xi Jinping, has vowed "reunification" with Taiwan by any means, including through military force.
Joe Biden, President of The United States, has said that the US will defend Taiwan from Chinese attack.
Australia has said they would join the USA, and Japan has indicated they may as well.
The island of Taiwan is about 180 kilometers off the southeastern coast of China.
It is across the Taiwan Strait.
It has an area of .
The East China Sea is to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest.
Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain).
It is 3,952 meters high (12,966 ft).
There are five other peaks over 3,500 meters.
The Penghu Islands are  west of the main island.
They have an area of .
More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian.
They have a total area of .
The Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea have a total area of .
They have no permanent inhabitants.
A trademark (or trade mark) is a way for a business to help people identify the products that the business makes from the products made by another business.
A trademark can be a name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design, or picture.
It can only be used on things made by the business that owns the trademark.
For example, Coca-Cola and Coke are trademark names for a certain drink made by the Coca-Cola Company.
No other business can use these names or any names similar to them.
Other businesses can make a drink that is similar, like colas soft drinks, but they have to use a different name for their drink, such as Pepsi.
Another example is the Nike company which makes sporting goods like shoes and clothes.
The "swoosh" symbol used on their products is a trademark.
Trademark and law
Trademarks for bakers were first included in a law in the 13th century in England.
France expanded trademark laws in the late 19th century and other countries followed.
Getting a trademark
Trademarks are protected by law.
In some countries, a person or company can get a trademark simply by using the name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design, or picture on its products.
Trademarks can also be registered.
In that case, the business tells the government of its country that it wants to use a certain name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design or picture as a trademark for the products it sells.
If no other person or business is using the trademark to sell those products, then the government will list that trademark.
Once it is listed, no one else can use that trademark for those products.
This is called "registering" the trademark.
Using another person's trademark
If someone uses the trademark in a wrong way, the trademark owner can sue the other person.
If a court decides that the other person was not allowed to use the trademark, they might have to pay damages to the trademark owner.
If another person wants to use a trademark that they do not own, they can ask the trademark owner for permission.
The trademark owner can grant the other person a license.
The other person usually must pay some money to the trademark owner for the license.
This can be in the form of a percentage of the cost of the product that the other person sells called a royalty.
For example, a person might pay Nike ten percent (10%) of the cost of each pair of shoes it sells for the right to include the Swoosh.
Marking products with trademarks
When people write a word that is a trademark or show a picture or symbol that is a trademark, they should say that it is a trademark.
If a trademark is not registered, they can write the word "Trademark", use the abbreviation "TM", or use the symbol ™ on their products.
If a trademark is registered, they can use the letter R in a circle symbol: "®".
People can also say it is a "registered trademark" or use the abbreviation "Reg.".
Service marks
Trademarks are used for products.
Businesses that do things for people instead of making things are called service providers.
They can get a service mark instead of a trademark.
When people write or show a service mark, they can use the service mark symbol: "℠".
Intellectual property law
The Ten Commandments are a set of rules or laws.
The Bible says that God gave them to the people of Israel.
The commandments exist in different versions.
One version can be found in the Book of Exodus of the Bible.
Another version can be found in the Book of Deuteronomy.
In the Book of Exodus, the mountain where they were given is called Mount Sinai, the Book of Deuteronomy talks about Mount Horeb (the same Mt. Horeb where God called Moses from the burning bush, Exodus 3:1-3).
Both are probably different names for the same mountain.
The laws were written on stone tablets.
These laws are important for Judaism and Christianity.
Countries which follow those religions often have some of the commandments as part of their Civil laws.
Sometimes these rules are also called Decalogue (from Greek, can be translated as ten statements).
The name decalogue first occurs in the Septuagint.
The Israelites  received the commandments after they had left Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III.
There are different texts talking about the commandments.
Most of them are in the Bible: The Book of Exodus, Chapter 20 and the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 5.
The Qu'ran mentions the tablets but does not list exactly the same commandments.
For instance Quran 17:23-39 starts with worshipping God alone and honouring your parents.
“You shall have no other gods before me."
“You shall not make yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God are only worthy of worship, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."
“You shall not murder."
“You shall not commit adultery."
“You shall not steal."
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”
Ten Commandments in the Old Testament Torah
5 And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them.
2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
3 The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive.
4 The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire.
5 I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain.
He said:
6 ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
7 ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.
8 ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;  9 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,  10 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
11 ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
12 ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.
15 And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
16 ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
17 ‘You shall not murder.
18 ‘You shall not commit adultery with somebody’s spouse.
19 ‘You shall not steal.
20 ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
21 ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’
22 “These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more.
And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.
Differences in teachings and interpretation
These commandments are translated from ancient Hebrew to Basic English, so the exact words chosen may not mean to us exactly what they meant to the Hebrews.
There are a variety of interpretations of these commandments:
The  Roman Catholics understanding of the commandment to not make "any image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above" means that "likenesses" may be built and used, as long as the object is not worshipped as an idol.
The Eastern Orthodox Church has a very similar position.
Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that the incarnation of an invisible God as a visible human, Jesus, makes it alright to use flat images in worship (see Iconoclasm).
Most other Christians allow statues of religious figures, provided there is no "veneration" of them.
They are not commonly found in Protestant Churches, but may be found nearby or in Museums.
Historical figures or busts may be used for educational purposes.
Stained glass windows may contain depictions of honored historical or Biblical persons.
Judaism in its various forms usually takes a position somewhere between the Protestant view and that of Islam.
Synagogues would not have any statues in them.
Images of God are forbidden anywhere.
Islam forbids any images whatsoever of Allah (God) or persons, including Mohammad.
That is why their buildings are generally decorated with calligraphy but never depictions of living beings.
Using God's name improperly
Many languages have expressions of anger or dismay that include the word "God".
In addition, many times people "swear to God" to try to convince others they are telling the truth.
Another offense might be to say that "God told me" to do something when He didn't.
The actual name of God in the Old Testament was YHWH, sometimes pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah.
Pious Jews refrain from using this name or even the word God, for which they substitute G_d.
This is to avoid using God's name in a way that might break this commandment.
Sabbath day
Jews honor the Sabbath (Shabbat) from sundown on Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night, the seventh day of the week on the Jewish calendar.
In the New Testament Jesus did things that made the Sabbath command different from the other nine.
Jesus seemed to reduce its demands, unlike some other commandments where he made them stronger.
Jesus was often criticized for healing on the Sabbath or doing other things.
He said that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath".
Doing good on the Sabbath seemed to be praised and practiced by Jesus.
In that way he disobeyed some of the strict interpretations that had become common in His day.
Some conservative Christians are "Sabbatarians" (most of these follow the Reformed traditions).
Sabbatarians think the first day of the week or Lord's Day is the new Sabbath, because the 4th commandment has never been removed.
They also say that the Sabbath law was given when the world was made.
It came before the ten commandments were given.
Others believe that the Sabbath remains as a day of rest on Saturday, while Sunday as a day of worship, in reference to Acts 20:7: the disciples came together on the first day of the week to break bread and to hear the preaching of the apostle Paul.
Also, Jesus appeared to his followers on the "first day of the week" while they were in hiding.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church, and some others, believe that the custom of meeting for worship on Sunday originated in paganism, specifically Sol Invictus and Mithraism (in which sun god worship took place on Sunday).
Instead, Adventists keep Saturday as the Sabbath as a memorial to God's work of creation believing that none of the Ten Commandments can ever be destroyed.
Seventh-day Sabbatarians claim that the seventh day Sabbath was kept by the majority of Christian groups until the 2nd and 3rd century, but because of opposition to Judaism after the Jewish-Roman wars, the original custom was gradually replaced by Sunday as the day of worship.
Married relations
To "be false to the married relation", called adultery, is when a married person has sexual relations with a person other than his or her spouse.
Having sex outside of  marriage is fornication and is also sin.
It is condemned in other places in the Bible, but not specifically in the Ten Commandments.
Jesus taught his audience that the outward act of adultery does not happen apart from sins of the heart: "From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
In The New Testament Jesus says "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."
Killing or murder
There are different translations of this commandment; the Hebrew words  are translated either as "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not murder".
Older Protestant translations of the Bible, those based on the Vulgate and Roman Catholic translations usually translate it "Thou shalt not kill".
The Catholic Church believes that endangerment of human life or safety  is a mortal sin that breaks The Fifth Commandment.
Furthermore, the Catholic Church does not believe in a difference between murder and manslaughter the way the law does.
With the exceptions of killing in self-defense (a form of manslaughter in many nations' laws) and killing in war, the Catholic Church believes all other forms of killing or attempting to kill violate The Fifth Commandment.
Unsafe driving could also lead to unintentional killing.
Jewish and newer Protestant versions tend to use "You shall not murder".
There are different opinions as to which translation is more faithful to the original.
The many examples in the Old Testament of killing sanctioned by God, are quoted in defense of the view that "murder" is more accurate.
Furthermore, the Hebrew word for "kill" is "" - "harog", while the Hebrew word for "murder" is "" - "retzach", which is found in the Ten Commandments "" - "lo tirtzach".
Many theologians (such as German Old Testament scholar A. Alt: Das Verbot des Diebstahls im Dekalog (1953)) suggest that commandment "you shall not steal" was originally intended against stealing people—abductions and slavery.
This would be the same as the Jewish interpretation of the statement as "you shall not kidnap" (e.g. as stated by Rashi).
Civil laws in most countries list many types of stealing.
These include burglary, embezzlement, looting, robbery, shoplifting or fraud.
The penalties depend on the value of the thing stolen, and if violence was used to take it.
In some places stealing horses brought a death penalty.
That is because it could cause danger or even death to the horse's owner who could no longer do necessary travel.
Poaching is the illegal killing of wild animals.
Especially in modern times, money is often stolen by trickery or keeping false bank or debt records.
In the 21st century this can be done using computers.
This is called "White-collar crime".
Some societies have attempted to say that no property is "private" but everything belongs to the whole society.
If this were ever put in practice, it would make stealing impossible, but it has not been fully practiced anywhere.
False witness
To "give false witness" would include lying in court which is called perjury.
Telling false gossip which harms someone is similar.
Some think this commandment includes all lying.
It is to knowingly give any false statement.
Others allow a white lie.
Some Jewish teachers said that not all lying is false witness (perjury).
They say that lying is sometimes "permissible or even commendable".
This would include changing the truth to be modest or to avoid harm to someone.
Saint Augustine believed that some lies could be pardoned, and that there were in fact occasions when lying would be the right thing to do.
He says that lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone may be forgiven.
These need to used with great caution, however.
Different numbering
The Bible does not number the commandments.
Different religious groups have numbered them in different ways.
The Jews, followed by Christian Protestants, end the first commandment with "You are to have no other gods but me."
Catholics and Lutherans end the first commandment at "I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws."
and separate in their last two commandments the desire for a man's wife from the desire for other things he owns.
The commandments passage in Exodus has more than ten important statements, there are 14 or 15 in all.
While the Bible itself gives the count as "10", using the Hebrew phrase ʻaseret had'varim—translated as the 10 words, statements or things, this phrase does not appear in the passages usually presented as being "the Ten Commandments".
Various religions divide the commandments differently.
The table below shows those differences.
A tree is a tall plant with a trunk and branches made of wood.
Trees can live for many years.
The oldest tree ever discovered is approximately 5,000 years old and the oldest tree from the UK is about 1,000.
The four main parts of a tree are the roots, the trunk, the branches, and the leaves.
The roots of a tree are usually under the ground.
However, this is not always true.
The roots of the mangrove tree are often under water.
A single tree has many roots.
The roots carry nutrients and water from the ground through the trunk and branches to the leaves of the tree.
They can also breathe in air.
Sometimes, roots are specialized into aerial roots, which can also provide support, as is the case with the banyan tree.
The trunk is the main body of the tree.
The trunk is covered with bark which protects it from damage.
Branches grow from the trunk.
They spread out so that the leaves can get more sunlight.
The leaves of a tree are green most of the time, but they can come in many colors, shapes and sizes.
The leaves take in sunlight and use water and food from the roots to make the tree grow, and to reproduce.
Trees and shrubs take in water and carbon dioxide and give out oxygen with sunlight to form sugars.
This is the opposite of what animals do in respiration.
Plants also do some respiration using oxygen the way animals do.
They need oxygen as well as carbon dioxide to live.
Trees are renewable resources because, if cut down, other trees can grow in their place.
Parts of trees
The parts of a tree are the roots, trunk(s), branches, twigs and leaves.
Tree stems are mainly made of support and transport tissues (xylem and phloem).
Wood consists of xylem cells, and bark is made of phloem and other tissues external to the vascular cambium.
Growth of the trunk
As a tree grows, it may produce growth rings as new wood is laid down around the old wood.
In areas with seasonal climate, wood produced at different times of the year may alternate light and dark rings.
In temperate climates, and tropical climates with a single wet-dry season alternation, the growth rings are annual, each pair of light and dark rings being one year of growth.
In areas with two wet and dry seasons each year, there may be two pairs of light and dark rings each year; and in some (mainly semi-desert regions with irregular rainfall), there may be a new growth ring with each rainfall.
In tropical rainforest regions, with constant year-round climate, growth is continuous.
Growth rings are not visible and there is no change in the wood texture.
In species with annual rings, these rings can be counted to find the age of the tree.
This way, wood taken from trees in the past can be dated, because the patterns of ring thickness are very distinctive.
This is dendrochronology.
Very few tropical trees can be accurately dated in this manner.
The roots of a tree are almost always underground, usually in a ball shaped region centered under the trunk, and extending no deeper than the tree is high.
Roots can also be above ground, or deep underground.
Some roots are short, some are meters long.
Roots take in water, and nutrients, from the soil.
Without help from fungus for better uptake of nutrients, trees would be small or would die.
Most trees have a favorite species of fungus that they associate with for this purpose.
Above ground, the trunk gives height to the leaf-bearing branches, competing with other plant species for sunlight.
In all trees the shape of the branches improves the exposure of the leaves to sunlight.
Branches start at the trunk, big and thick, and get progressively smaller the farther they grow from the trunk.
Branches themselves split into smaller branches, sometime very many times, until at the end they are quite small.
The small ends are called twigs.
The leaves of a tree are held by the branches.
Leaves are usually held at the ends of the branches.
The, although some have leaves along the branches.
The main functions of leaves are photosynthesis and gas exchange.
A leaf is often flat, so it absorbs the most light, and thin, so that the sunlight can get to the green parts in the cells, which convert sunlight, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and water from the roots, into glucose and oxygen.
Most of a tree's biomass comes from this process.
Trees with leaves all year round are evergreens, and those that shed their leaves are deciduous.
Deciduous trees and shrubs generally lose their leaves in autumn as it gets cold.
Before this happens, the leaves change colour.
The leaves will grow back in spring.
The word "tree" in English means a long lived plant having obvious main stem, and growing to a considerable height and size.
Thus not all trees have all the organs or parts as mentioned above.
For example, most (tree-like) palms are not branched, and tree ferns do not produce bark.
There are also more exceptions.
Based on their general shape and size, all of these are nonetheless generally regarded as trees.
Trees can vary a lot.
A plant that is similar to a tree, but generally smaller, and may have multiple trunks, or have branches that arise near the ground, is called a "shrub", or a "bush".
Since these are common English words there is no precise differentiation between shrubs and trees.
Given their small size, bonsai plants would not technically be "trees", but are indeed "trees".
Do not confuse the use of tree for a species of plant, with the size or shape of individual specimens.
A spruce seedling does not fit the definition of a tree, but all spruces are trees.
A tree is a plant form that can be found in many different orders and families of plants.
Trees show many growth forms, leaf type and shape, bark traits and organs.
The tree form has changed separately in classes of plants that are not related, in response to similar problems (for the tree).
With about 100,000 types of trees, the number of tree types in the whole world might be one fourth of all living plant types.
Most tree species grow in tropical parts of the world and many of these areas have not been surveyed yet by botanists (they study plants), making species difference and ranges not well understood.
The earliest trees were tree ferns, horsetails and lycophytes, which grew in forests in the Carboniferous period; tree ferns still survive, but the only surviving horsetails and lycophytes are not of tree form.
Later, in the Triassic Period, conifers, ginkgos, cycads and other gymnosperms appeared, and subsequently flowering plants in the Cretaceous period.
Most species of trees today are flowering plants (Angiosperms) and conifers.
A small group of trees growing together is called a grove or copse, and a landscape covered by a dense growth of trees is called a forest.
Several biotopes are defined largely by the trees that inhabit them; examples are rainforest and taiga (see ecozones).
A landscape of trees scattered or spaced across grassland (usually grazed or burned over periodically) is called a savanna.
A forest of great age is called old growth forest or ancient woodland (in the UK).
A very young tree is called a sapling.
The tallest trees in Australia are all eucalypts, of which there are more than 700 species.
The so-called 'mountain ash'.
with a slim, straight trunk, grows to over 300 feet.
Stoutest trees
The stoutest living single-trunk species in diameter is the African baobab: , Glencoe baobab (measured near the ground), Limpopo Province, South Africa.
This tree split up in November 2009 and now the stoutest baobab could be Sunland Baobab (South Africa) with diameter 10.64 m and circumference of 33.4 m.
Some trees develop multiple trunks (whether from an individual tree or multiple trees) which grow together.
The sacred fig is a notable example of this, forming additional 'trunks' by growing adventitious roots down from the branches, which then thicken up when the root reaches the ground to form new trunks; a single sacred fig tree can have hundreds of such trunks.
Age of individual trees
The life-span of trees is determined by growth rings.
These can be seen if the tree is cut down or in cores taken from the edge to the center of the tree.
Correct determination is only possible for trees which make growth rings, generally those which occur in seasonal climates.
Trees in uniform non-seasonal tropical climates are always growing and do not have distinct growth rings.
It is also only possible for trees which are solid to the center of the tree; many very old trees become hollow as the dead heartwood decays away.
For some of these species, age estimates have been made on the basis of extrapolating current growth rates, but the results are usually little better than guesses or speculation.
White proposed a method of estimating the age of large and veteran trees in the United Kingdom by correlation between a tree's stem diameter, growth character and age.
Great Basin bristlecone pine (Methuselah) Pinus longaeva: 4,852 years
Patagonian cypress: Fitzroya cupressoides: 3,649 years in Cordillera Pelada, Los Rios, Chile
Other species suspected of reaching exceptional age include European Yew Taxus baccata (probably over 2,000 years) and western redcedar Thuja plicata.
The oldest known European yew is the Llangernyw yew in the Churchyard of Llangernyw village in North Wales which is estimated to be between 4,000 and 5,000 years old.
The oldest reported age for an Angiosperm tree is 2,305 years for the Sri Maha Bodhi sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) planted in 288 BC at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka; this is said to be the oldest human-planted tree with a known planting date.
Oldest forests
The earliest fossilised trees date to 386 million years ago in the Devonian period.
They have been found at an abandoned quarry in Cairo, New York.
The forest was so vast it originally stretched beyond Pennsylvania.
This discovery is two or three million years older than the previous oldest forest at Gilboa, also in New York State.
Tree value estimation
These most likely use diameter measured at breast height (dbh), 4.5 feet (140 cm) above ground—not the larger base diameter.
A general model for any year and diameter is:
Use of a rope, helmet, and harness are the minimum requirements to ensure the safety of the climber.
Other equipment can also be used depending on the experience and skill of the tree climber.
Some tree climbers take special hammocks called "Treeboats" and Portaledges with them into the tree canopies where they can enjoy a picnic or nap, or spend the night.