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"Is"
Watch out for words attributing essence or identity to something. English Prime selects "is" for its prime synecdoche.
The little word is has its tragedies; it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger. Whenever I use the word is, except in sheer tautology, I deeply misuse it; and when I discover my error, the world seems to fall asunder and the members of my family no longer know one another.
George Santayana
Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas ... routinely misled themselves by their grammar. Until, if ever, if possible, a rational language is forged – and
all then achieve competence in it, sentient (
ahem) Homo sapiens is simply stuck.
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