Fascinating suggestion to ditch the verb "To Be". Not such a crazy idea.

[snagglepuss]

Source: The Guardian

snip

Forty-five years ago, the author David Bourland published an essay proposing a radical overhaul of English based on eliminating all forms of the verb "to be". In a world where we all spoke E-Prime, as Bourland called this new language, you couldn't say "Sandra Bullock's latest film is shockingly mediocre"; you'd have to say it "seems mediocre to me". Shakespeare productions would need retooling ("To live or not to live, I ask this question"), as would the Bible ("The Lord functions as my shepherd"). The world, in short, would feel very different – though in E-Prime you couldn't actually say it "was" very different. Unsurprisingly, it proved even less popular than Esperanto, and in fairness Bourland never meant it as a serious replace­ment for English. But in this anniversary year, his eccentric vision deserves celebrating. Because in theory at least, E-Prime aimed at nothing less than using language to make our insane lives a little more sane.

Bourland studied under Alfred Korzybski, a Polish aristocrat émigré who founded the philosophy of General Semantics, made famous by his slogan, "The map is not the territory." To think about and function in the world, Korzybski said, we rely on systems of abstract concepts, most obviously language. But those concepts don't reflect the world in a straightforward way; instead, they contain hidden traps that distort reality, causing confusion and angst. And the verb "to be", he argued, contains the most traps of all.

Take the phrase, "My brother is lazy." It seems clear, but Korzybski and Bourland would say it deceives: it implies certainty and objectivity, when in reality it expresses an opinion. Even, "The sky is blue" papers over the details: I really mean, "The sky appears blue to me." "Our judgments can only be proba­bi­listic," wrote Allen Walker Read, a Korzybski follower. "Therefore we would do well to avoid finalistic, absolutistic terms. Can we ever find 'perfection' or 'certainty' or 'truth'? No! Then let us stop using such words in our formulations." E-Prime provided an easy way to do this: simply stop using "to be".

All this might seem maniacally pointless pedantry. But as cognitive therapists note, thoughts trigger emotions, and "finalistic, absolutistic" thoughts trigger stressful emotions. "I am a failure" feels permanent, all-encompassing, hopeless. Restating it in E-Prime – "I feel like a failure" or "I have failed at this task" – makes it limited, temporary, addressable.


Read more at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/16/e-prime-change-your-life

[DJ13]

1. __ __ or not __ __, that is the question

Just doesnt sound the same, does it?

[snagglepuss]

7. The article addresses Hamlet's soliquey. Using E-Prime it would be

To Live or Not to Live. Granted some of the poetry is lost but I love being made aware that the verb TO BE in fact distorts reality.

[pscot]

22. Scoo ___ scoo ___ doo.

Sorry, Frank doesn't like it. :P

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. I intend to try this out myself.

Perhaps it will work for me since I currently utilize "The Secret" and I have not found any problems with the rephrasing of my speech, only improvements. The fat that wraps itself around my body is leaving more rapidly now that it has not been used as a personal identifier, for example.

[snagglepuss]

15. Other than knowing its a self help book, I am not familiar with The Secret.

Does it advise people to change how they describe reality?

[instantkarma]

19. We create our own reality.

That's the message I got and one with which I agree. To me, everything else was fluff and/or new age garbage.

[Cronus Protagonist]

28. Yeah, the "channeling" of the book appears to me to be total bullcrap

I don't go for the new age stuff in it. However, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater......................

Perception can be reality just as much as reality can be perception. One speaks one's self into existence in such a way as to allow for the maximum and most beneficial options being opened up.

For example, if one goes around saying things like "I'm fat and I need to get thin", that person currently is, and continually will be a fat person who is needing to get thin. It occurs as a fact for that person, and the body responds by ensuring that it is, indeed, a fact.

Using "The Secret", such a phrase would not be spoken and, if thought, would be followed by a repudiation of it. In other words, one might say "The fat that is currently attached to myself will soon not be there at all. It's unhealthy and unwanted. I am getting thinner and thinner", all of which are indisputably true, which then becomes one's reality and the body reacts by making it so.

This is more than just an aphorism, by the way, it is a simple choice to interpret one's reality in such a way as to generate and create a future in which you be, do, have everything you dream of having, passing over obstacles on the path like water on its way to the ocean...

And it works, but it's not really secret. That's just marketing for the book and the movie.

[instantkarma]

31. Here's where I disagree

My perception/interpretation of reality is not reality. My interpretaion of reality is my interpretation of reality and realty is reality.

"I'm fat and I need to get thin" is a classic game of big dog/little dog. "I'm fat and I will get get thin" is a recognition (also a judgment) that I'm fat and "I will get thin" is a committment to lose the excess weight. If the commitment is sincere the question is "How do I lose this weight?" followed by doing those things which will result in my losing weight.

To me, "the fat that is currently attached to myself" is a disowning of oneself. The fat is me, as is the thinner me underneath all that fat. The question is, am I comfortable being fat or do I have a problem with it? If I'm comfortable, then I won't change anything. If I have a problem, the thing to do is convert it/burn it off. If I want to lose the weight and don't, then I have another problem which I'm using in order to stay fat.

Ultimately, I can't simply think and wish away the fat. That will take a plan, physical actions and time.

However, sometimes I do think of something I want to happen and it just happens. (Maybe it's a particular video I want to see on youtube and Boom! there it is.) That can be really weird.

[Cronus Protagonist]

34. Good luck then!

I'm moving on.

[angstlessk]

3. yeah, we will immediately begin speking in e-prime as soon as we leave our

emotions in the e-garbage

[niyad]

4. several hundred thousand haitians appear dead??

[BirminghamExaminer]

9. Actually that sounds about right.

[snagglepuss]

11. Not at all. One would say several thousand died in the earthquake.

[snagglepuss]

10. No you'd say several thousand died in the earthquake.

[TrogL]

36. several hundred thousand Haitians died

[enlightenment]

5. Good grief.

Now we're supposed TO BE concerned about the inability of some people to grasp language nuance - because they're too bloody brainless to understand that not everything is exactly as it seems?

Kill me now.

[snagglepuss]

8. I think many people become inured to language and this is an attempt to

make people not take language for granted. I think many people would benefit if they stopped saying for instance "I am a lawyer" or "I'm a garbage collector" rather than "I defend people who have been charged with a crime" or "I collect trash to earn a living" because the former creates a total identity and possibly limits people's notions of themselves or others.

[enlightenment]

32. "Possibly" is a very big word.

People do become inured to language - that's why they fail to observe nuance and meaning. There is a world of difference between "I feel" and "I am" - and a reason why "to be" exists.

Language should not bow to the dictates of those who need to make everything conform to fuzzy, 'feel good' thinking.

I realize I sound harsh; I am not directing my comments to you, snagglepuss, just the idea under discussion.

[mzteris]

6. i think that be crazy talk . . .

:rofl:

[snagglepuss]

13. There is nothing crazy about sharpening perceptions and seeing things

in a new perspective. Have you ever thought about the limitations of language. Someone, who spoke a number of languages, once told me that in Spanish you don't say for instance "I lost my mittens", you say "my mittens lost me". I find it fascinating that English forces people to take ownersip of actions beyond their control.

[instantkarma]

16. On "seeing things" and "forces"

"Seeing things in a new perspective" is really "imagining things in a new perspective." And a language cannot "force" anyone to do anything.

[snagglepuss]

20. "Seeing things" is a common idiom so I'm not sure where you are going with that

(another idiom).

[instantkarma]

24. I know it's a common idiom.

It's about speaking realistically. I only see with my eyes. If I see something, I say I see it. If I'm imagining something I say I'm imagining it.

To me it's a small step into delusional thinking. Like the word "feel." I don't "feel" angry, I imagine I'm angry. "Angry" is a word I use to describe the actual sensations I feel in my body and the resulting thoughts in response to some stimuli which I used to trigger the response.

[mzteris]

33. every child should be learning more

than one language.

I'm a huge advocate of that.

But eliminating "to be" from the English language on purpose? Well, you see how well converting to metrics went.

Ain't. gonna. happen.

[PaulaFarrell]

37. I think someone was having you on

I believe the the translation is 'perdi mis manoplas' - 'i lost my mittens'. Spanisn & French both have the verb 'to be' - in fact they have two verbs 'to be'.

But odd that you use that example of English forcing poeple to talke ownership of things beyond their control - who is responsible for you losing your mittens if not yourself? you can't be blaming the hapless mittens. and if you don't think it's your fault, you can always say 'my mittens got lost' or , horror of horros, 'my mittens are lost'.

[instantkarma]

12. (I think) that's backwards

The problem isn't the language, it's our understanding and application of it. "My brother is lazy" implies certainty and objectivity, but it also implies "My brother is lazy" is a fact. As the author points out, it is only an opinion. "I think my brother is lazy" shows the speaker is stating an opinion and taking responsibility for that opinion -- i.e. "I think." The problem is most people cannot distinguish the difference between an opinion and a fact. Of course, that is only my opinion. It's recognizing the difference between reality and one's interpretation of reality.

[snagglepuss]

14. Good point however the the absoluteness of "is" masks that an opinion

not a fact is being stated. If anything this is simply a reminder to people to remain alert.

[instantkarma]

18. Only sometimes.

And again, it comes down to an individual's understanding and awareness of what she is saying, her ability to distinguish opinion from fact and after that, her willingness to commit to being honest in her expression.

Democratic Underground is a website. Obama is president. Earth is a planet (assuming we agree on the definition of a planet)

[snagglepuss]

23. I agree it does come down to people's awareness. It is easy to

become inured to nuance. E-Prime is a reminder to be aware.

[instantkarma]

25. My only problem with the concept

Is that the author seeks to provide a solution by censoring the language, which I think is backwards. My solution would be that we change our level of awareness and learn to speak more honestly.

[niyad]

17. cogito, ergo sum

[instantkarma]

21. Backwards.

I am, therefore I think.

Without being, there is no thinking.

[pscot]

26. Cogito cogito

ergo cogito sum.

[Cronus Protagonist]

29. Of course, that phrase of Descarte is fatally flawed

As noted by others more qualified than I to reflect upon it.

[a la izquierda]

27. If I used seemed instead of was...

in my dissertation, I would be raked over the coals. Yes, someone five years from now could find new data to dispute my arguments, but if I said "The Huicholes were not fully Catholicized in 1890," that is a judgment call that I am making based upon my expertise in the area. If I said that anything expressing doubt of any kind (read: something seemed to be true, or not true), I've failed at my task of proving my point.

[snagglepuss]

30. Where is the article does it suggest that "seem" replaces any To Be word?

You could restate the sentence as It can be catagorically stated that as of 1890 the expressed goal of erasing old beliefs and converting the Huicholes to Catholicism failed. The H converted but did not fully embrace all aspects of C.:shrug:

[Igel]

35. Such ideas are always amusing.

People get trapped at the sentence level and spend their whole life trying to get to a speech act or narrative.

It makes sense that he studied with a semanticist. At least syntacticians generally know they're stuck at the sentence level and that extra-sentential properties of the discourse affect the syntax. (Although Chomsky's famous response when asked why his natural human language grammar didn't work in the least with Russian that Russian wasn't a human language still jars. A more humble scholar would have responded that his theory was a work in progress--as it was.)

My semantics prof delighted in pointing out where the semantics we were learning flopped. Most of them involved focus, speech acts theory, or relevance/discourse-level expectations. Places where the listener understands or provides information not overt in the sentence. Hard to formalize such things. Semanticists still have trouble. Okay, that's an understatement. But at least the wiser and more humble semanticists recognize the problem, the source of the problem, and why the problem isn't human language but their notation and semantic theory.

"My brother is lazy" might be a fact, might be an opinion, but is definitely an assertion and is said not to attribute a quality to your brother but to get someplace else in the conversation. "My brother seems lazy" and "I think my brother is lazy" doesn't do the trick. As a way of supplying decontextualized information, Bourland's idea works--as though conversation and human interaction, as opposed to semantics in Fregean notation is human interaction.

Echoing Chomsky, E-Prime is not a natural human language.

[Recursion]

38. Plenty of languages lack a verb that directly translates as "to be"

But most of them allow nominal sentences with no verbs at all.