Doug wrote; - >I'm brand new to Paddlewise and fairly new to e-mail. What is E-Prime? What >does this mean :), etc? Is there a dictionary of this stuff on the net? I >figured <G> that means a grin from the context, but some of the others I'm >guessing. Am I stupid, or am I supposed to know this stuff from somewhere? No. you "are not" stupid. The comment can demonstrate E-Prime. A person speaking E-Prime would have said "I feel stupid, What do these things mean (smileys etc.) in E-mail?" rather than make a personal judgement of oneself. No one "is" stupid. Sometimes we act stupidly or appear not to have a complete understanding of something. If you leave out the verb "to be" in your use of English you have E-Prime. Using E-Prime reduces conflict and forces clearer thinking on the user. It works particularly well for users of E-Mail who tend to write as they speak. When you speak you use body language, intonation etc. to make yourself understood. E-Mail does not permit this added aspect of communication and so, comments get misunderstood or come across too forcefully. Many users find that they get into fewer arguments and resolve conflicts much more easily when they use E-Prime. For more information on this offshoot of General semantics you can access the General Semantics web site. People use the smiley faces on E-Mail to denote humour. Imagine a book like Gulliver's Travels or Alice in Wonderland with smiley faces because the writer could not make his humour clear with his English. Mrs Pointer, my English teacher would fail us all for using smiley faces. I can here her now. "If you can't write clearly don't write at all." Cheers, John Winters Redwing Designs Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft http://home.ican.net/~735769/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Feb 05 1999 - 04:03:28 PST
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