RE: E-prime -an interesting article.

M. E. Smith (mesmith@rocketmail.com)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 11:43:49 -0700 (PDT)

> to that sort of thing. For example, this post uses
> E-prime, and I'm sure some of you could dispute at
> least some of what I'm saying.

So I did, and I erred. At least thrice in the post I used the verb "to be", two in the very sentence above! Oops! Using E-prime reminds me of driving a car while playing the accordian; I'll try to do better this time.

This displays another problem with E-prime; the effort required exceeds in value the small gain in clarity. To use an example from the article, the sentence:

"A fetus is a human."

Could easily be translated to E-prime as:

"A fetus has the same rights as a human."

Would E-prime really help much?



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M. E. Smith
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