A professor I know possesses a mania for E-Prime, though I sometimes suspect that he does not recognize his mania as one for E-Prime. The brainchild of the Polish mathematician and linguist Count Alfred Korzybski, "E-Prime" means written and spoken English absent a certain verb that typically indicates equivalencies or peculiar qualities. The virtue of E-Prime, according to its proponents, lies in a certain epistemological claim, namely, that use of the pernicious aforementioned verb encourages dogmatic, absolutist thinking. Once forced to speak utterances or craft texts in which this verb never appears in any of its conjugations, the practitioner (right word?) of E-Prime will come to experience the world afresh as a place of myriad perceptions of no immutable ontological truth. In other words, the speaker or writer of E-Prime will eventually retrain his mind in a manner which constantly emphasizes his subjective perceptual limitations.
Relativistic thought-policing? Well, I cannot say for sure, but I can say this: E-prime certainly makes for more vigorous prose.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment