E-Prime

[Xathan]

[Decided we should stop spamming Meepo's thread.]

As for using E prime: I suggest we only require people to restate their posts in E prime when confusion arises or when we suspect people of trying to mislead others. We are not the Royal Society or NASA, so why make things difficult on ourselves?

E prime puts too much subjectivity in the language.

The sky is clear. A simple declaration that is easy to prove or disprove.
The sky appears to be clear.  Makes the speaker sound like a fool or a pseudo-intellectual.

To be is the least confusing verb in almost any language.  It is the building block of description and statement.
The e-prime guy was a wanker that never got any.

I'm with CYMRO on this one. And actually, to actually express the sky is clear in E Prime, one must say "The sky has the apperance, to me, of clearness." Which, quite frankly, makes me want to smack the person speaking.

I'm an english major. I love the english language. An attempt to remove part of the English language, no matter how non assertive they are, smacks of the beginnings of Orwell's thought destroying Duckspeak, which quite frankly scares me, as it would any rational person.

They say themselves that certian concepts become harder to express, and I think propganda would actually be aided by E-prime: it is much easier to deny if you never make absolute statements. Regardless, anything that makes a concept more difficult to express is a negative thing in my eyes, and therefore should not be used.

[Túrin]

:withstupid:

[Xathan]

I'm deciding if I should be insulted by the stupid or complimented you agree...:P

[brainface]

Oh, there's DEFINITELY statements that become NEEDLESSLY more complex with e-prime. I think i like it as a general rule, though, because all too often, 'is' doesn't actually mean is. It's one of those things you can keep in mind to clear language up, but causes catastrophe if followed blindly.

In these examples for instance, it's a very good idea:

lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument #1.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument #2.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.

uncalled for[/i].

They say themselves that certian concepts become harder to express, and I think propganda would actually be aided by E-prime: it is much easier to deny if you never make absolute statements.

get[/i] expressed at all. ;)

[Xathan]

They say themselves that certian concepts become harder to express, and I think propganda would actually be aided by E-prime: it is much easier to deny if you never make absolute statements.

get[/i] expressed at all. ;)

But you could say, in E Prime: "You can see that playing video games negatively effects teenager's morals." That is in no way using the verb to be, yet it is still powerful propaganda. Plus, I'm against anything that blocks communciation, even stupid communcation by close minded fools.

[CYMRO]

lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument #1.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument #2.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.

1 and 2 are not good examples, because the "a's" are not true, they are approximations, based on limited observation.

5:  It either is or is not the knife used in the crime.

6:  Ditto.  The car was either a blue Ford, or it was not. One's subjective recollection is immaterial to the actual fact.  The actual car will not really change make and model with each observer.


To be is perfectly mathematically correct becauuse, for example, it is used to describe members of a set.
While some scientific concepts are best expressed in terms of seems and possibilities, most science needs the definitive be.  And certainly anyone attempting to communicate with me without it would quickly find themselves being ignored.

[brainface]

1 and 2 are not good examples, because the "a's" are not true, they are approximations, based on limited observation.

"An electron is both a particle and wave"[/b] is debatable; "The electron behaves as a wave when constrained by certain instruments." is not.

To be is perfectly mathematically correct becauuse, for example, it is used to describe members of a set.

5 & 6[/b], it's trivially easily for an observer's account to be off. The statement "6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford." isn't meant to infer that the car is in some quasi-state somewhere between blue fordness and red pontiacness, but to convey exactly so much as the observer knows to be true--his memory says it was a blue ford.

I'm really not sure how to debate this, if you don't hold any importance in distinquishing from something that is recalled and something that is absolutely true? :/

While some scientific concepts are best expressed in terms of seems and possibilities, most science needs the definitive be.

nothing[/i] but theories that have yet to be proven false? What in the world would science best describe with the definitive be?

[CYMRO]

I'm not sure you're on the ball at all there. Isn't science nothing but theories that have yet to be proven false? What in the world would science best describe with the definitive be?

I think science is more than the pursuit of falsehoods.  Some things just are.  Their truth is undisputable.

Albert Einstein is dead.
The space shuttle take-off is canceled.
Gold is heavier than argon.
The speed of light is greater than the speed of sound.
Mars is the next planet in orbit out from Earth.

These are concepts that require, in the real world, and the theoretical world, isness.
To take the certainty of isness away from these concepts is to engage in silly mental masturbations that achieve nothing.

Real-life observations aren't perfectly mathematically correct at all though. for 5 & 6, it's trivially easily for an observer's account to be off. The statement "6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford." isn't meant to infer that the car is in some quasi-state somewhere between blue fordness and red pontiacness, but to convey exactly so much as the observer knows to be true--his memory says it was a blue ford.

The observer's account may be off, but the fact remains the same.  The car that involved in the accident either was or was not a blue ford.  

[brainface]

To take the certainty of isness away from these concepts is to engage in silly mental masturbations that achieve nothing.

Well I'd hate to mentally masturbate all over the place, particularly if it's silly.

[CYMRO]

Yeah.... that was the point of saying them in e-prime??? To avoid approximations? "An electron is both a particle and wave" is debatable; "The electron behaves as a wave when constrained by certain instruments." is not.

But you could say in good old fashioned, non constrained English the above, and continue to use "is" in other observations.

Real-life observations aren't perfectly mathematically correct at all though

Not all RL observations have to be.  But RL does require isness.  A call to 911 requires statements of being, not silly avoidances of proper English.
"My house is on fire!" will net you a better response than "My house appears to have caught fire."  That second staement will cause hesitation on the part of the operator as she asks for clarification, wasting valuable response time.

[brainface]

Oh, there's DEFINITELY statements that become NEEDLESSLY more complex with e-prime. I think i like it as a general rule, though, because all too often, 'is' doesn't actually mean is. It's one of those things you can keep in mind to clear language up, but causes catastrophe if followed blindly.

*shrug*?

[CYMRO]

To take the certainty of isness away from these concepts is to engage in silly mental masturbations that achieve nothing.

Courts usually do not recognize Platonic truths, but rather reality.  Which is what counts.

And you'll go blind doing that all over the place. >.<

[CYMRO]

Oh, there's DEFINITELY statements that become NEEDLESSLY more complex with e-prime. I think i like it as a general rule, though, because all too often, 'is' doesn't actually mean is. It's one of those things you can keep in mind to clear language up, but causes catastrophe if followed blindly.

*shrug*?

Is am is except when it is are or was or were.  But it might be shall.

[Túrin]

I think the problem E-prime is trying to attack is attacked much more easily by requiring:
a) every sentence in a scientific publication be started by "according to our observations" and/or "according to observations made by X in publication Y"
b) every sentence in a court interrogation be started by "according to my recollection"
c) every sentence in opinionated language (speeches, non-objective articles in the paper, etc.) be started by "in my opinion".

Ad a: saying "according to my observations" is nonsensical, because every scientist is well aware of this liability and will read any use of "to be" this way anyway (and when more specification is required, a footnote is added to point to the specific observations), and saying "according to X's observations" is already done in footnotes.

Ad b: Any judge is well aware that a witness is only restating what he recalls, and any half-decent judge will repeatedly point this out to the jury, if there is any.

Ad c: I don't know about your paper, but in my paper, any article in the not purely informative parts starts with a preface reading something like "Blahblahblah, thinks X, writer of this article." which should suffice for any half-decent reader.

Conclusion: The only value of using E-Prime seems to be to make propaganda via speeches, mass-media manipulation, etc. impossible. This won't work for two reasons: first, the propaganda users will never use E-Prime, even when it starts to become widespread (they will use their propaganda methods to undermine E-Prime), and second, it is very well possible to make propaganda statements without using "to be". Going by brainface's example about the video games, someone doing a speech will be well prepared and thus will have more than one source available, probably from respected scientists, making his statement:
"I feel due to statistics and other information taken from reliable reports from several respectable scientists that playing video games negatively affects teenager's sense of morality as defined by the general opinion of the American people."

Conclusion of the conclusion: E-Prime is a contrived way of attacking a perceived problem (perceive because two out of the three problems it tries to attack don't exist, as I showed above) that completely misses his target.

Túrin

[brainface]

Going by brainface's example about the video games, someone doing a speech will be well prepared and thus will have more than one source available, probably from respected scientists, making his statement:

Oh, that'd be nice. I'm not sure it's likely. :) Around here, we do politics with emotional arguments and talking points.

As per the other examples, I don't really like blanket disclaimers, or blanket understood disclaimers, for that matter. Especially in that one sentence of a written work may need one disclaimer, and another sentence may need a second.

I'm kinda tired of trying to defend ye old e-prime, though, as I'm apparently the only one in this thread who thinks it's of any worth. :)