[habosa]

When I was in high school we couldn't use the verb "to be" in assignments for English class. No is, am, are, was, were, has been, will be, etc.

Of course this is overly restrictive, but 80-90% of the time there was a better way to phrase the sentence if you thought about removing the "be" verb. 10% of the time it was awkward, which sucked.

Aside: also taught me that MS Word has a very advanced find feature where I could give it "be" and it would find me all of the above conjugations.

[JoshTriplett]

> When I was in high school we couldn't use the verb "to be" in assignments for English class. No is, am, are, was, were, has been, will be, etc.

> Of course this is overly restrictive, but 80-90% of the time there was a better way to phrase the sentence if you thought about removing the "be" verb. 10% of the time it was awkward, which sucked.

I do the same thing, habitually, as a tool to improve my writing, inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime .

[jimmaswell]

That is just completely absurd. How would I even say that without using "is"? That .. is, no .. Complete absurdity is , no.. Complete absurdity dwells in that concept? That sounds like I'm trying to write some kind of poetry. The verb "to be" is one of the most important verbs of the entire language. Of any language, even in cases like Latin where it's not said but implied to be there. It is a fundamental tool of communication to equate the existential states of different concepts with the verb "to be". These writings must have sounded awful. No real writing ever avoids the use of "to be". Being is too important of a concept. Cogito ergo sum, as is said. Existential qualification is too important to throw away.

[RogerL]

If you intend to emphasize the object in that first sentence, the passive voice is correct (as in this sentence). However, we usually do not want to do that. Consider:

The chair leg has been chewed by my bored dog.

vs

My bored dog chewed the chair leg.

The former, being passive, emphasizes the chair leg rather than the subject.

Anyway, a non-passive rewrite of your first sentence is: "I find that completely absurd". Note the active voice. I find it a truer representation of your thoughts. You are making a judgement on the concept, and this wording makes that clear.

[jimmaswell]

I guess I mostly prefer to emphasize the object when the actor isn't necessary. I've known the deal with the passive voice. It's better used when it makes the sentence shorter rather than longer.

[gweinberg]

If you believe that, why did you use forms of "to be" just now? "when Im was in high school", "this is overly restrictive", "there was a better way", pretty much the only part of your post which would find favor with your English teacher was "it sucked".

[habosa]

I've fallen out of the habit, also hacker news comments don't call for all of the style rules I use for formal writing.