primus

Argument #9:
(by James French - http://learn-gs.org/library/etc/49-2-french.pdf)

Even if E-Prime should improve one's writing, that is not a reason to promote it as a general semantics practice. The class of items that we might call "effective writing techniques," fall outside the subject matter of general semantics, and so any incidental benefits are as irrelevant to general semantics as they would be to any other discipline. Imagine if you will that E-Prime improved the writing of students and professors in the physics department of some university. Would we then consider E-Prime to be an element of physics?

primus

Square's response:

Ad #9: I don't get the point at all! Did I miss something?

primus

My comment:

Semantics! (No pun intended.)

e-prime improves one's writing, improving one's writing has nothing to do with semantics, therefore one shouldn't promote e-prime as a general semantics practice.

The author confuses cause with effect. He takes one single effect of a practice, claims that this effect has nothing to do with the science that the practice forms part of, and purports that for this reason the practice should no longer form part of that science.

To reuse my analogy from Argument #10: Eating healty food makes you feel good, but feelings fall outside the science of nutrition, therefore one shouldn't promote healthy food as a nutritional practice.

Definition of Semantics (from Wikipedia):

In linguistics, semantics is the subfield that is devoted to the study of meaning, as borne on the syntactic levels of words, phrases, sentences, and sometimes larger units of discourse, generically referred to as texts. As with any empirical science, semantics involves the interplay of concrete data with theoretical concepts, and specializations have developed that focus on different parts of that interaction, for example, the semantics of natural languages and formal languages, respectively.

Depending on the perspective taken up, semantics may include the study of connotative sense and denotative reference, truth conditions, argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis, and the linkage of all of these to syntax.

The decompositional perspective towards meaning holds that the meaning of words can be analyzed by defining meaning atoms or primitives, which establish a language of thought. An area of study is the meaning of compounds, another is the study of relations between different linguistic expressions (homonymy, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, paronyms, hypernymy, hyponymy, meronymy, metonymy, holonymy, exocentric, and endocentric).

crystalserenity101

Well done! Argument 9 made me about where the author had gone wrong, at first reading.

Marcio_Osorio

No matter how much Mr. French plays EP down, I still cannot help using it. All of a sudden, my writings grew livelier and more confident and my readers . . . have not yet complained about it. Back at the ESL forum I frequent I lavishly use whole statements in EP.

Karen

Not only does e-prime improve one's writing ability, it gives the writer a clearer picture of what he/wants to say. Because of ep's direct approach, it also becomes easier to make action requests which eliminates non productive language. Who says it doesn't improve ones writing?

Marcio_Osorio

Mr. French in at least one of his 10 Arguments, I guess.

Karen

Marcio, you have a very dry sense of humor by American standards. Ok, lets move on and figure out the need of this particular site.

Chinmay

Hello Marcio and Karen,I stay quite busy these days, so I couldn't visit this website.We cannot use e-prime in our school, since the text book prescribes Standard English and nobody respects e-prime.My attempts to convert them into e-prime thinkers will prove futile.Any suggestions as to what I should do?Certainly, I cannot use e-prime in grammar in school, since the 'be' forms play such a pivotal role in English.
Also, Can you help me translate this sentence into e-prime?
"In moral power, a woman is far superior to man"
In translating this sentence : "Female sex is not the weaker sex but the nobler one" into e-prime do we lose the meaning of the sentence or its purpose?
Kindly reply.

__________________
☆¢нιηмαу☆`·.¸. The Rising ☆ of XI A5

Karen

In moral power, a woman acts far superior to man.

Marcio_Osorio

Thought of, "Morally speaking, women can [verb] in ways men would never imagine possible"

[verb] = take adversity in stride, manage to extricate themselves from the burdensome, moral straightjackect men often don. Here I think you can devise and then insert more meaningful structures than I can.

I mean, you may go on to describe, or give a full account of, what women can morally do, how outclassed men may feel for taking women for granted and whatever a single-headed Márcio can devise. Hope to hear from you!

I have not a single argument against E-Prime.

Karen

Morning Marcio, maashallah, I have had and continue to have a run of workshops back to back which takes me out of Karachi and places me all over Pakistan. I had a 36 hour reprieve, so I flew to Karachi for a short break. Leave on the noon flight back to Islamabad and will not get back for another few weeks. If you don't hear from me, this explains why. I love teaching e-prime and found it very complimentary to the crucial skills language called protocal that I use when resolving disputes. Take care K

Marcio_Osorio

Dear Karen, I have read your last post. I wish you a nice day.

Chinmay

Hello, I think the phrase "maashallah" does not exist in English..Can u explain what it means?

__________________
☆¢нιηмαу☆`·.¸. The Rising ☆ of XI A5

Karen

With Allah's blessings

Ann.English@clear.net.nz

I shall try for the first time to contribute to an e-prime forum.

(1) in moral power, a woman far surpasses a man.
(2) One leads oneself astray by labelling all females as weaker than all males; I see them as nobler.

Kind regards
Ann

Karen

Morning Ann, glad to have you aboard. I have had little time to meet with my friends for quite some time now on this forum, but, now I have the time and I look forward to getting back in touch with my special e-prime friends.

You have written a wonderful sentence in e-prime and now to complete the flow of your thought, add to it a specific example that would support that thought. E-prime lends itself to conciseness but not without a supportive thought.

Karen

Morning Ann, glad to have you aboard. I have had little time to meet with my friends for quite some time now on this forum, but, now I have the time and I look forward to getting back in touch with my special e-prime friends.

You have written a wonderful sentence in e-prime and now to complete the flow of your thought, add to it a specific example that would support that thought. E-prime lends itself to conciseness but not without a supportive thought.

life

Do you think e-prime would make effective essay writing?

Ann.English@clear.net.nz

Before I answer, I imagine an essay like this:

A was B and C was D, so E is F and G will be H. That's so because it's obvious.

The I imagine an essay like this:

A seemed to imply B, and some people think that C necessarily followed D. Therefore, they said, E and F had much in common, and it was likely that G could lead to H in the future. I agree that G could possibly lead to H, but I wouldn't call it "obvious."

Now I will try to answer.

"Yes."

---------- Post added at 04:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:09 PM ----------

Bother. For "and it was likely that" read "and they assumed that"

Dan Zimmerman

To say that "Female sex is not the weaker sex but the nobler one" may suggest that we should preserve the comparative construction in reverse and regard the male as weaker; an e-prime revision that also keeps that suggestion alive would have the same prejudicial effect. A compromise position might eliminate the problem: “We should regard women not as weak but as noble.” By focusing on women alone, this version makes the point of the original sentence without incurring its irrelevant baggage.

Ann.English@clear.net.nz

I agree. Well said.

stuv698

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