Bullshit.

Take a look at any news or blog, internet forum, each day and look at how people whose words approximate this language come across relative to each other. It's pretty interesting when you see how small changes in language shape our understandings of ourselves and each other sometimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Prime#Allowed_words

Quote :

"E-Prime E-Prime, short for English Prime, is a modification of the English language that prohibits the use of the verb "to be" in all its forms. History D. David Bourland, Jr. proposed E-Prime as an addition to Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics some years after Korzybski's death in 1950. Bourland, who studied under Korzybski, coined the term in an essay in 1965 entitled A Linguistic Note: Writing in E-Prime (originally published in the General Semantics Bulletin). It quickly gained controversy within general semantics, partly because sometimes practioners of General Semantics saw Bourland as attacking the verb 'to be' as such, and not just certain usages. Korzybski had found two forms of the verb 'to be'—the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication—to have structural problems. For example, the sentence "The coat is red" has no observer, the sentence "We see the coat as red" (where "we" indicates observers) appears more correct as to the facts about light waves and colour as determined by modern science, that is, colour results from a reaction in the human brain. Korzybski advocated raising one's awareness of structural issues generally through training in general semantics."

For more info, I'd recommend reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurolinguistics

What thoughts would you guys have on the hypothetical idea of restricting free speech (oh noes!), but only in the case of political campaign advertisements?

Some would rationally argue that precedents render the idea impossible. But as so many of us seem to forget in The Soap Box, we're not playing a real game of policy general here. It's an intellectual one. The only stakes are how much fun you have and what you learn.

9/27/2006 5:39:17 PM

Do we really want politicians to use even more watered-down language? I'd hate to see what the "next step" of watered down, non-committed language these fuckers use if THIS became the norm.

9/27/2006 5:47:22 PM

It depends on what the meaning of "is" is.

9/27/2006 5:53:32 PM

^^ Explore that a little. What do you mean by watered down? Or are you not implying the next step would have necessarily be watered down?

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 5:58 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 5:57:57 PM

Did I mention that in social psychology you'd learn how most Americans' inconsistencies reflect their understandings of interdependence? And that constistency and power are viewed as political currency?

9/27/2006 6:24:51 PM

Quote :

"^^ Explore that a little. What do you mean by watered down? Or are you not implying the next step would have necessarily be watered down?"

I think it removes all potency from the claims of actual reality if we can only refer to our subjective impressions. Surely everything we have is a subjective impression, but we make often very good projections about real world things.

9/27/2006 7:23:20 PM

And we make the best projections by understanding that we live in an interdependent universe in which every force and actor is at minimum, a player.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 7:31 PM. Reason : ...]

9/27/2006 7:28:03 PM

Yeah I understand that much, but you have to look at what the negative fallout will be. People will start to use this language against each other, making the other person seem "wishy washy" due to the way they're speaking.

9/27/2006 7:31:12 PM

I disagree. You can always demontrate (rather clearly, as with logical fallacies) how the language is being used improperly.

That's why I referred in my original post to how closely ideological combatants use languistic preferences like E-Prime. Or sales.

9/27/2006 7:33:30 PM

I don't know much, but I know this... I hate professors who make me write thesis papers in E-Prime.



That is all.

9/27/2006 8:11:57 PM

Yeah dude. Fuck thesis papers. I wish professors would actually spend more time expressing concerns with students, even grading them in some way over the pure intellectual qualities of their underlying assumptions BEFORE the effectiveness of their argumentative construction comes into play?

9/27/2006 8:57:13 PM

Quote :

"What thoughts would you guys have on the hypothetical idea of restricting free speech (oh noes!), but only in the case of political campaign advertisements? "

Next we should be discarding metaphors.

9/27/2006 9:43:04 PM

this takes studies in semantics to places they've never been before

anyhow, it requires thinking before speaking, and thus will never catch on - even though thinking about the ideas behind it gives your brain a fun workout

9/27/2006 10:45:23 PM

this is more evidence that scientists should leave the English language alone.

9/28/2006 12:12:36 AM

I don't see what the big deal is.

Something like a coat being red might be debatable, but with no practical purpose. Therefore, in a situation like that, there's no need to use this "E Prime".

But in things which by their nature can only be subjectively described, then it's obvious you shouldn't speak about them in absolutes, unless you're trying to trick someone. This can still cause problems though because with YECers and geology, for example, they claim based on false premises that geologists interpret the evidence incorrectly, and it would basically than an encyclopedia's worth of typing to explain to them how they're wrong, as oppose to just calling them idiots and going about your business. Even E-prime won't fix that kind of misconception, and even make it worse.

For the sake of brevity, on a message board, I sometimes skip on the e-primes, but I do try to make it clear as much as possible. And it can also be tiring to the reader to read something written in that manner too. Any reasonably educated person should be able to recognize when something is being spoken about in a subjective manner, whether it is presented that way or not, if they take in to account the context in which they are reading something.

9/28/2006 12:41:30 AM

Quote :

"Any reasonably educated person should be able to recognize when something is being spoken about in a subjective manner, whether it is presented that way or not, if they take in to account the context in which they are reading something."

Explain how Congress remains occupied by individuals the majority of whom are viewed as crooks.

9/28/2006 11:36:29 AM

E-prime is only useful to point out that some things are observer-dependent, that things like color and beauty can't just "be", but appear a certain way to people. Otherwise, it's just dumb. The sentence "The pizza is in the oven" doesn't need to be rephrased to "The pizza seems to have the location of inside the oven."

9/28/2006 12:53:05 PM

How much of "trolling" and "winning" a thread are observer-dependent?

How much of persuasion is observer-dependent?

9/28/2006 1:37:44 PM

I'd say not much for trolling, since it depends on the troll's intentions. Quite a bit for winning, since different people have different opinions of what counts as winning a thread. The act of persuasion should be able to be defined objectively, so I'll say none there.

9/28/2006 6:50:59 PM

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001100.html

9/28/2006 10:21:39 PM

Should be able to? Or is?

9/28/2006 10:23:50 PM

Fine, "is". As in, what "is" your point?

9/28/2006 11:32:46 PM

E-Prime's a great language.

9/29/2006 12:00:26 AM

Fantastical.

9/29/2006 12:27:35 AM