PDF Version: To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology

To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology Edited by D. David Bourland, Jr., and Paul Dennithorne Johnston Foreword by Steve Allen Examine the verbs of the "to be" family and you find a startling underlying assumption.  The words be, been, is, was, am, were, etc., have their logical basis in the idea that things stay the same.  The notion of identity -- a thing's absolute sameness with a similar thing or with itself over time -- has confused and corrupted thinking since the days of Aristotle. Life means change: growth, learning, metamorphosis, decay.  Even the apparently changeless earth changes, as moving plates push up mountains or split continents apart.  Today we often experience rapid social and technological change.  Yet our daily language has at its foundation the assumption that things don't change, an assumption that helps us focus and therefore "understand," but also leads us astray when we act as if things haven't changed, and they have.  How can we deal with this "two-edged sword"