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R.I.P.

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I love Wikipedia. While I was looking over Robert Anton Wilson's entry I discovered that he was a supporter of E-prime, which promotes the banishment of the verb "to be" in all its forms in English. Having never heard of this movement I followed the link and read on.

As a speaker and writer the idea of doing away with "to be" as a verb both frightens and intrigues me. I think I will start editing my material with this in mind. Having read through the article I can see that we rely on this verb out of laziness and it often serves to obscure rather than enlighten arguments. As Bill said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."


You know, even just looking over what I just wrote changing -

"he was a supporter of E-prime"

to

"he supported E-prime"

would make for a much stronger and succinct statement.


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