I was just thinking about the E-Prime discussion in class today and how hard it would be to actually take steps towards totally eliminating "to be" from human vocabulary.
My view is that instead of eliminating "to be" and using E-Prime words, why don't we just keep "to be" in our vocabulary the way it is now but just explain what "to be" actually means. Someone mentioned that any sort of movement would have to start with very young children and this is true. My view is that we should teach them how to say "to be" like we always have but explain to them that although you're saying "be" it's not an equals sign. It's merely an agreement based on past experiences and observations. Ex: Don't to remind yourself to say "This flower appears to be blue" as opposed to "This flower is blue" in front of your kids. Tell them that "This flower is blue...but by is I mean....bla bla bla." Instead of using E-Prime we should merely help each other understand better what we actually mean when we say some form of "to be." What do you think?
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Oh that was me who posted I forgot to write my name.
It theory, this would work. But I think it would be way too difficult to explain "to be" or E-Prime to a child. I can barely get the children I babysit to go to bed on time, forget trying to explain to them that "the time displayed on the clock reads 8:00, but really the measurement of time is a just man made invention so it technically is not 8:00. It only appears as if the hour is 8:00, but the time doesn't equal 8:00"
A five-year-old isn't going to understand that. I have a hard time understanding it!
Besides - I don't think we could ever truly define "to be". As Hayakawa explains in his text, the meaning of any word (including the verb "to be") changes according to context. "A word can never mean the same thing twice." We might try to explain to our children that "to be" is not an equals sign, but what if a situation arises where "to be" must be an equals sign? If we try to brainwash our children out of using "to be" then we may end up making language a complete barrier to understanding.
In the book that I read over last week- "The Language Instinct," by Steven Pinker- the author explains that a language changes from each generation to the next. Even more radically, he claims that languages are formed FROM children; for example, the Pinker describes how one melting-pot culture in Hawaii in the early 20th century threw together a myriad of languages. These people created what is referred to as a "pidgin"- that is, a new, basic language that was a conglomerate of all the parent languages. The children of these people inherited the language of these people and created a "creole," which is the development of a pidgin language. They invented the grammar and became fluent while enhancing its vocabulary.
Another interesting phenomenon explained involves two deaf parents who had given birth to a child. The parents being born to hearing families, they learned American Sign Language (ASL) late in their lives and never fully became "fluent." Their child picked up the main ideas of the language, and using the general rules that he had learned, was able to smooth out his parents' mistakes and became a natural in ASL. Thus, if we TRULY wanted to eliminate all forms of "to be" and thereby utilize the E-Prime system, it would be necessary to keep it away from the new generation of English-learners. Eliminating "to be" from our vocabulary will do nothing. We still know that "to be" exists. It is principle over reality in this case- even if "to be" is not used, we know that all substitutions for it would be for one reason.
After our discussion of E-prime, I began to see that the problem with society really IS that we equate maps with territories without realizing it. However, I don't know if I'm entirely convinced that removing "to be" from our vocabulary is the solution. It's a bit of a black-and-white way of looking at the problem and removing "to be" is a bit of an absolute way of solving it. As I was translating an article in and issue of "The New Yorker" I realized that there were few instances where "to be" was actually used to "equate" a map and a territory. In most cases it was used to formulate various tenses, such as, "I had been washing a dish and I heard it so I came out," (via Dane Cook haha). The task of translating the article therefore became very difficult as I didn't know how to translate these tenses without compromising their meaning. Did anyone else run into this same problem as they were translating their articles?
Hey, it's Erin. Yeah I had problems translating as well, although mine was part of a book rather than an article. I mean, someone IS from a certain country, someone IS someone's wife/husband. It gets out of control when you need to say "appears to be from a certain country that is commonly called"... What I mean to say is that aren't there some instances were the word "is" is correct? Is understanding that language is not concrete, that "stapler" is just a word that we've agreed to use about a certain object, enough? I sort of think that it is impossible to remove "to be" from the language; it's so commonly and prolifically used (when you learn spanish, it's one of the first verbs you learn to conjugate haha). And what would we do about helping verbs (just to throw some grammar in there)?
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