Alternative English

[Actaeon]

Uncle Mike (Burgess) once claimed to have spent a week eschewing the word "I", and was embarrassed to discover how many of his statements had "himself as the real subject".

 

This thread, therefore, is intended to experiment with that concept.If any group of people could converse without self reference, it's Spiderweb. Well, not Aloreal, but an exception can certainly be made in that case. If he (she/it...) were to post without a trademark signature, the board would implode and leave a wasteland beyond anything in Dikiyoba's stories.

 

The question, of course, is whether such an endeavor is worthwhile. There have been many movements to change the way things are expressed (E-Prime being a notable one). Thought and speech are, many people believe, a feedback loop. Passive voice denotes passive opinion, and perpetuates it.

 

Others would assert that the artful use of the passive, the mundane, "to be", or even "I" can have great impact. What do you think?

[ex post slarto]

Define "real subject." The grammatical term "subject" is misleading since the primary topic of a sentence is not necessarily its grammatical subject.

 

Did he also reject other cases of the first person pronoun, like "me" and "my" and "mine" and even "myself"?

 

In other words, do you actually mean no self-reference, or do you just mean to ban one way of doing so?

[Actaeon]

It would be rather silly to avoid one part of speech and not its associated terms. However, "us" and "we" include other individuals, and would probably be permissible. As it is as much an interesting exercise as a challenge, it's up to the taste of the poster. One could even dismiss the proposed structure and simply respond to the question of how language and thought are linked.

[Randomizer]

From now on We will refer to ourselves with the royal we.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

From now on We will refer to ourselves with the royal we.

We dispute your assertion that you are pregnant or royalty. We shall, however, reserve judgement on the "schizophrenic" category.

[Actaeon]

We perceive this method as cheating, but are also amused by it.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

Others would assert that the artful use of the passive, the mundane, "to be", or even "I" can have great impact. What do you think?

[Alorael at Large]

Psycholinguistic experiments like E-Prime usually have a point. In E-Prime's case, it's clarification of the line between fact and opinion. It's actually rather interesting to see what happens when you communicate like that, but you functionally you need s way to express being. Not necessarily a verb, but something that serves that purpose.

 

But what's the purpose of removing the first person from English? All that has been written here uses, at worst, a generic second person example, but it's still a matter of opinion. "I think" could be appended liberally and nothing of substance would change.

 

—Alorael, who got through the post without directly talking about himself, and now he'll go ahead and say that it's a good thing to do. The plural of anecdote may not be data, but anecdotes are important, personal experiences are valuable, and sometimes personal discussions are about you and me. It might be interesting to see how one might come to know other members of forums in which no discussion involved the first person, but it's too late here.

[Skwish-E]

I I I I

I am the Frito Bandito.

[Karoka]

Karoka is wondering if talking in third person counts as self reference.

[Actaeon]

Karoka is likely aware that there is a long tradition of third person reference at Spiderweb that a mere sorceress would be foolish to combat.

[Alorael at Large]

The experiment is about avoiding self-reference, not use of the first person. If you're referring to yourself, it's self reference no matter what the person is.

 

—Alorael, who wanted to figure out a way to put this signature in the second person. You found it too awkward to put up with it, so he decided against it.

[nikki.]

It's easy enough to eliminate references to individuals with careful planning, or even just a little bit of applied thought. This post, for example, is successful at it. It remains to be seen whether posts following it will be equally as successful.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Nikki, you have unintentionally (I assume) raised an interesting point. Is there a difference between self-reference and reference to individuals? That is, is it possible to self-reference without referencing individuals? Your post references itself, which seems to be some sort of self-reference.

 

For those of us (self-reference) confused by my jumbled mass of words up there, I'm asking whether a post referring to itself would count as a self-reference. Thoughts?

[Alorael at Large]

It would be self-referential, but it would not be the poster referencing him or herself.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't want to end up in court asking what the definition of "self" is. That way lies humiliation.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Master1

Nikki, you have unintentionally (I assume) raised an interesting point. Is there a difference between self-reference and reference to individuals? That is, is it possible to self-reference without referencing individuals? Your post references itself, which seems to be some sort of self-reference.

Yeah. It could probably be assumed that as the post spoke about itself, it was self-referencing. The idea that the post did this was intentional, in that it was designed to draw attention to itself, but the can of worms opened certainly wasn't planned; it was more of a joke, if anything.

The thing is, it's still easy enough to get away from self-referencing even if you take it that far. You could say that the lack of a self within a post, sentence, or thought highlights it's absence, or that an author, speaker, or thinker is still referenced within a text through the language used, but unless the self is directly addressed or represented, it still meets Actaeon's criteria.

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: .- .-.. --- .-. .- . .-..

It would be self-referential, but it would not be the poster referencing him or herself.

—Alorael, who doesn't want to end up in court asking what the definition of "self" is. That way lies humiliation.

Click if you dare.

[ex post slarto]

Self-Reference

[Alorael at Large]

This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself.

 

—Alorael, who isn't self-referencing. He's referencing self-reference.