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Subject:More semireliable E-prime info From:Mark Levinson <mark -at- CRABAPPLE -dot- BITNET> Date:Fri, 6 May 1994 10:58:45 IDT
it was originally created by a fanatic Polish linguist
who believed that the construction "to be" led to all sorts of conceptual
errors in human thinking
** Like you, I'm relying on nothing but biological memory, but I believe
that it was Alfred Korzybski, in the 1920s or so, and that he opposed the
basic Aristotelian notion-- embodied in the verb "to be"-- that any
person, thing, or concept can be equated with any other. The
General Semantics movement evolved around this and similar ideas
(for example, that it's useful to remember that none of us is even
the same person from day to day) and, under S.I. Hayakawa (yes, the
same guy who later went into politics), put out an enjoyable
magazine called _Etc._ which I believe is still published today.
(It was called _Etc._ to remind us that anything we say actually
continues onward indefinitely by its unspoken implications.)
On the following final reminiscence I'm really shaky, but I think
that A.E. Van Vogt's sf novel _The World of Null-A_ was supposed
to be a popularization of the concepts of general semantics.
__________________________________________________________________________
Mark L. Levinson mark -at- dcl-see -dot- co -dot- il
SEE Technologies, Box 544, fax +972-9-543917
46105 Herzlia, Israel voice +972-9-584684, ext. 230
