Re: To be or not: An...

[Bonni Graham <bonnig -at- AOL -dot- COM>]

Sean O'Donnell notes:
"I strongly encourage anyone who considers E-prime a gimmick, a mental game
(like writing in monosyllabes and without the letter e), a response to the
overuse of "to be," or an assault on their writing arsenal--or that "it can
be taken too far"--to read _To_Be_or_Not:_An_E-Prime_Anthology_. I once
leaned that way, too.

My mind, of course, remains open."

I think it's possible for one to be concerned about the possibility of
overuse and still leave one's mind open.  You must remember that all most of
us know about E-Prime is what we've seen on this list (or perhaps we wouldn't
be so worried).

I, despite my concern about overuse, plan to look into the book you mentioned
and the possibility of using E-Prime as a tool to help my writing.  That
falls under the category "open minded", I think.

What worries me, is that a management bigwig, with no more information that
we have seen right here, will look at this and say, "Hey, there's an idea --
let's implement it!" and do so, with no further thought or research.  And
lest anyone say, "Oh, _that_ would never happen," let me point out that
that's how I got stuck having to write library automation documentation to an
eighth-grade reading level (when you had to have a master's in library
science to even begin to understand one of my ex-co's product lines --
because that's what our customer base wanted).  That's why I keep warning
about overuse.

Bonni Graham
Manual Labour
President, San Diego STC
BonniG -at- aol -dot- com