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WHEN used honestly, "to liberate" is a reflective verb...
WHEN used honestly, "to liberate" is a reflective verb...
...master's degree in business administration from Harvard, was also a student at the Institute of General Semantics in Lakeville, Conn., where he became an ardent disciple of the linguistic theories of the leading prophet of general semantics, Alfred Korzybski. In Korzyb-ski's view, the verb "to be" was a dangerous and frequently misused word that was responsible for much of mankind's semantic difficulties. Going the master one better, Bourland has led a one-man crusade for the adoption of "E-prime" -which is his name for the English language minus...
...Change. The semanticist's objection to the verb "to be" is based on certain philosophical convictions. One is a stern rejection of an axiom of classical logic, the principle of identity-that A is A, or a rose is a rose. In fact, argued Korzybski, the basic principle of life is not identity but, as the elliptical pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus put it, that all is change. Time and movement are inexorable, and in the fraction of a second that a rose is described it has already begun to alter...
...second philosophical conviction is that language influences behavior. Mankind is much less aware of the implacable reality of change simply because his language is dominated by the verb "to be," which implies a static quality of illusory permanence. "Our language," says Bourland, "remains the language of absolutes. The chief offender remains the verb 'to be.' The spurious identity it so readily connotes perverts our perception of reality...