Talk:An analysis of identity

@Dan Polansky: Your thoughts on w:E-prime? I have not made a real effort to try it yet, but it strikes me as interesting for two reasons. First, I imagine (correct me if I'm wrong) that it encourages use of the active voice. The w:Passive voice is common in officialese and doublespeak as it enables one to omit (and therefore obscure) the grammatical agent. [1] Incidentally, have you ever seen such a bad lede as in w:Object (grammar)? Secondly, it encourages one to describe more specific relationships than the "is-a" formation. John works as a farmer strikes me as a more precise use of language than John is a farmer. Conversely, E-prime would probably be awkward or lacking in authoritative effect in some instances. Take the example on wikipedia: "The cat is Garfield": "I call my cat Garfield". Yet this would sound rather pitiful, frankly weak, if you were referring to a human, as in I call my son Garfield. What if I want to call your son Bozo? One seems to admit that possibility with such timid phrasing. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 12:28, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Generally, my impression is that E-prime might be worthwhile as a method of correcting certain bad habits like overuse of the passive voice and other such imprecisions. To fully adopt it as one's "native language", so to speak, would probably be ill-advised. At the very least, the is a phrase is appropriate for drawing real equivalence. My cat's name is Garfield seems more natural and accurate than either of the two sentences in Wikipedia's example "The cat is Garfield", "I call my cat Garfield". AP295 (discuss • contribs) 12:45, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

About E-prime: "E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime,[1] sometimes É or E′) denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be." To my mind, avoiding all "to be" is absurd or is-instance-of absurdity or presents a case of absurdity. One can surely often strengthen writing by switching from "to be" to a more forceful verb, but I do not see how this practice can improve the characteristics of writing that I cherish the most, which is accuracy, clarity, unambiguity, empirical testability/falsifiability, logical testability/criticizability/falsifiability, etc.

Active voice is a classical English-style recommendation, but I think it is overrated. Semantically, there is no deep difference between active and passive voice. X does Y vs. Y is done by X, no big deal, I think.

Do you happen to have specific proposals for wording improvement of the "An analysis of identity" article, in the form of X --> Y? Or you could post here on the talk page a rewrite of one of my paras, if you like. I would give these proposals a consideration, but no promise; I tend to be quite stubborn or "ownheaded" as the Czech idiom has it. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 12:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I am not suggesting any particular change, except perhaps to E-prime. Perhaps a modified E-prime that allows is-a for definitions and equalities would be both practical and still possess the general benefits of E-prime. Avoiding false characterizations of identity seems to be a feature of E-prime. Since you discuss the grammar of "is a" and "to be" in the resource, I simply wanted your opinion on E-prime. Your comment on the passive voice seems to miss the point. Joe mowed the lawn and The lawn was mowed by Joe are equivalent, but the passive voice allows for The lawn was mowed. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:03, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I may consider specific change proposals; a general proposal to switch to the arguably unconvincing E-prime is unlikely to be implemented. (The previous sentence uses passive on purpose to drive a point home. The implied agent of that passive is me, of course.)

Well, sometimes it is the right thing to deemphasize/hide the agent. Am I using passive voice in some sentence where active voice would be better? Or is the passive voice used in excess in "An analysis of identity"? (See, we already know the author of "An analysis of identity" and do not need to identify him.) --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:29, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

You also seem to have missed (or reversed) my other point, which is that the phrase "is a" generally sounds more forceful, but may be overused. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:07, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I am all ears for specific wording change proposals, whether on sentence level or on a paragraph level. I much prefer it over generalities. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:29, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Really now Dan. (Can I call you Dan?) I'm not proposing any change to your article but rather inviting you to have a discourse on E-prime, which may be relevant to your article. You don't have to read between the lines to see the points I've made, but your reply ignores, inverts or misinterprets all of them. I agree it's a bit absurd to avoid all instances of "to be" and its variants. I had already said as much and described a possible "relaxation" of E-prime. If your answer is no comment then just say so. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you can call me Dan. I have misunderstood the purpose of your conversation. I interpreted the conversation as a contribution to improving this particular article.

I have no well developed thoughts on the stylistic guidance recommending a drastic reduction of the verb "to be". My initial thoughts are that "to be" is fine in general. Skilled writers probably often replace "to be" with stronger verbs, but I doubt this usually results in increase of accuracy, clarity, and other desiderata I cherish the most. But then, most writers are probably not interested in boring technical specifications. I may change my mind if I give e-Prime more serious consideration and though, which obviously has not happened yet given I am responding without having slept over on it. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:44, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

My point about rhetorical strength concerns the "is a" and "are" forms, and you've still got it backwards. "Is a" and "are" draw an equivalence and are therefore "strong". Sometimes this is (in an ethical or moral sense) appropriate, for instance when one speaks with genuine authority, "your actions are wrong", "my son's name is Garfield", etc. Sometimes this is arguably imprecise, as in "John is a farmer", which would be more accurately stated as "John works as a farmer". Sometimes this is used dishonestly, for instance equating someone with an abstract quality or label of judgement. The first and last cases are both rhetorical in a sense. They declare something to be so. Aside from this, E-prime seems to favor the active voice rather than the passive voice. While the work I cited above suggests that use of the passive voice has only a limited capacity to obscure the agent when it can be inferred and I haven't read it in full (it's 200 pages), it explains the idea. Beside that, it's also just a good habit to prefer the active voice. Orwell cautions the reader to avoid the passive voice whenever possible in his essay on language (which I've brought to your attention before). Like Orwell, I suspect English is being debased. People take after the example set by mass media. A precise definition of the problem is not yet clear to me (I haven't studied linguistics), but there's definitely a problem. Pure E-prime would probably undermine one's ability to speak confidently and authoritatively. In other instances it forces one to make more accurate choices. To have a compact set of rules that helps one consciously avoid the formulaic doublespeak, officialese and newspeak of the mass media would be invaluable, and this was probably the object of Orwell's essay. While his essay is very good, I doubt it fully captures the problem or the solution. Perhaps a modified definition of E-prime would work. Nominalization is also subversive and should be looked upon with deep suspicion. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 14:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

To have a compact set of rules that helps one consciously avoid the formulaic doublespeak, officialese and newspeak of the mass media would be invaluable. In fact, the complement must exist. If it weren't reasonably simple then the pseudo-intellectuals, half-witted pundits, imposters, and other phony mooks in the mass media, academia and government would be incapable of implementing it so uniformly. Not to say we don't have good people in the same institutions, though I'm starting to doubt it in the case of mass media and government. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 15:14, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

There was a beautiful project by the Viennese Circle to regulate language in such a way that it would be very hard or impossible to state nonsense in that regulated language, or at least the kind of nonsense that forms a considerable portion of the continental so-called philosophy. Alas, such a project is arguably doomed to failure. But the idea is beautiful: image a mere compact mechanical set of rules for simpletons that would make you a great and honest writer. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 15:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Not to force honesty or make it impossible to write poorly, but simply to avoid the bad habits impressed upon so many people by the mass media's argot. Orwell proposed six concise recommendations in his essay, of which he wrote "These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article." There are specific and deliberate features of the doublespeak used by political media and subversive mass media in general that distinguish it from "ordinary" English. I think Orwell described the gist of it fairly well and his six recommendations seem sound. Yet, having the benefit of hindsight and my own observations of contemporary propaganda, they seem incomplete. Or rather, they may require slight adjustment. Rules 5 and 6 could probably be removed. In their place, one could add something about avoiding nominalizations and also a rule about avoiding "to be" and its analogs when practical or under certain conditions. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 20:41, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, Hitchens frequently made the vague suggestion to the reader or listener when he cautioned them about propaganda, "look to the language". He tells us to beware "we" if the word is used as rhetoric, e.g. to recruit listeners or readers or to project the illusion of unity or consensus dishonestly. Hitchens is somewhat an "unreliable narrator", so to speak, but this also seems like a good recommendation and I've tried to follow it. (I'll say though, it's quite a hard habit to break, using "we" unnecessarily. Academic papers use it liberally and I suspect the habit is quite deeply impressed upon most scholars.) AP295 (discuss • contribs) 20:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I eventually intend to write up such a document, yet it would be substantially easier if I had a linguist to collaborate with. I suppose I already have written about it, but I'm not yet satisfied with the work. It has to be compact, concise and extremely sharp. Something that makes an impression on the reader and makes them conscious of these habits and their subversive nature, and ultimately compels the reader to extinguish them with the same alacrity and efficiency as water extinguishes fire. Only when that is finished will I have the tools necessary to banish this social and cultural rot, perhaps not from society at large but at least from some small corner of it. It destroys everything decent and worthwhile. This problem must be understood and put into words, otherwise one is hard-pressed to counter it in even the slightest way. I believe Orwell was on the right track. Hitchens knew exactly what this linguistic ruse was comprised of, but he only spoke about it vaguely. He was probably telling the truth when he said "look to the language" though. Propaganda and rhetoric are based in language. Part of it is the manipulation of tribalism and groupthink. Part of it is the poisoning of language and its expressive power. Perhaps I'll read more of Chomsky's work. He too is an unreliable narrator, but he's also a moralist, and moralists are rarely all bad. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 21:18, 22 February 2024 (UTC)