“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

Ask your students what this famous Shakespeare line means, and many will tell you Juliet is wondering where Romeo is. As you probably know, she’s not. She’s wondering why he is. The confusion about this quote is not surprising. Wherefore in the world does wherefore mean why? It’s just one of the many puzzling nuances of the English language.

Thankfully, to understand confusing words—as well as big words, rare words, and hard-to-read words—we have dictionaries, thesauruses, and cool websites like Rewordify.

Rewordify takes difficult text and translates it into simpler language. Type in “wherefore art thou,” and Rewordify will tell you what it means in plain English. It will also provide an analysis of the text difficulty. This free website aims to improve comprehension and vocabulary for people of all reading abilities. In addition to the text translating tool, Rewordify includes Common Core-aligned lesson plans for teachers, a vocabulary game, and more.

So now that I have this great website bookmarked, I’m thinking of “rewordifying” the entire contents of James Joyce’s Ulysses… and possibly the iTunes store’s terms and conditions contract while I’m at it. How about you?