Hopeless

The two most important concepts reflected in BE and HAVE shape and determine our life and death to a large extent. The following text shoes you why you need to ban these very two key verbs from your life once and for all. To achieve this noble goal you need to re-read this text every now and then:
1. to update your knowledge and see what research has achieved so far.
2. to refresh your memory since oblivion is at the root of all evil
If you have any ideas on how HAVE was born out of BE do report here. Other ideas as far as these two vicious verbs are concerned are more than welcome.

Hopeless

Later I was obsessed with possession. I started even buying things I didn’t need. I didn’t know why I bought them I think it was the colour or the design. This went on for some time till there was no space left and my energy was drained. It drove me mad with anger so I started throwing them away. When it was empty my energy returned gradually and I started thinking about this evil. To my horror I found it was the language I was using. There is no hope for me if I didn’t get rid of it. But how can I communicate without it? In English? Yes, of course in English what else? There is not only one word for possession but a wide range: You certainly have to start with HAVE. No, not HAVE again. Are the English really that possessive? Is HAVE not enough? Do they need an extra word like get to go after it? But what about the other words: own, possess, belong and ….in addition to wants and needs OK if I can’t get rid of them I can be content with one of them. What do you say the English always use HAVE even if they don’t need it? Are you having me on? Where is the logic? Oh, I see you mean the tenses. They need HAVE in for example: I have bought. What shall I do now? Does that mean I have to ban the perfect tenses from my speech and limit myself to the simple forms? Maybe, it is possible but …No, I can’t do that because this means I have to (no I must) give up my job.

It seems there is no way out. HAVE is ubiquitous the moment I open my mouth. No wonder why my mind grew so possessive. I can of course use “must” instead of have to but what about the possessive, I mean all the possessive pronouns like: my, mine, your, yours... or wait a minute the genitive: my mother’s house, the of-construction: the window of the house or even the double genitive. You see I told you, give up, go back to your old habit of buying. It is no use - but if you are that sensitive you don’t have to say I ll have fish at a restaurant. You can say I ll take fish or I eat breakfast. Is that correct English? You know what, somebody told me if you want to avoid HAVE you have to avoid BE as well because HAVE is nothing but BE’s offspring. For example if you say she’s it can mean: she has or she is. No difference and you know quite well there and their are pronounced the same although the latter is possessive not existential. In addition BE is really not acceptable because it makes you see things black and white. This is at least what E-Prime is concerned with. You can even speak without using HAVE or BE as in Chinese, Russian or Arabic. They use prepositions like: with, for. With me is a house instead of: I have got a house. BE has no existence in: The house beautiful for The house IS beautiful You don t really need BE and HAVE to communicate. Say. How? What do you mean? Well if you say for example: my house is beautiful - you are being subjective. In fact you must say: my house seems to me, I mean only to me, beautiful - but perhaps not to you. Now I am hopeless and for some inexplicable reason I started buying again.

Results of research done so far on BE and HAVE
1. Dictionaries: English dictionaries give these two verbs the longest entries. This no doubt reflects how much we are dependent on them. Please check the entries of your language dictionaries or any reference book and report back.

2. Grammar
Tenses: not only the perfect forms need to be given up but the continuous forms as well since they can’t do without BE. Suggestion: limit yourself to simple forms or find substitues.

When creating new life women can always refer to the future by saying: I am expecting a baby. For past reference I gave birth to a baby. There is no need to say: I am having a baby or last year I had a baby. Anyway they don’t possess the children they give birth to. Beside, it is hard labour. I believe most mothers agree with me here.

Sometimes languages llike French and German use "HAVE" but English avoids them by either using "BE" or another verb:
German: Ich habe Geburtstag: English It s my birthday today.
French: J ai trent ans English: I am thirty.
German: welche Größe haben Sie? English: What size do you take? or: what size are you?

3. Language and Thought: remember no thinking is possible without language. You can t change your way of thinking if you don t change the tool you need to frame your mind.

4. BE is used to form the passive: The window was broken by...
5. BE To is an idiom meaning you "have to" which is often overlooked: You are to be here by eight o’clock.
6. BE is the most irregular of all verbs in its conjugation.

BE and HAVE are the only two verbs which can be used as auxiliary (helping verbs) and as main verbs. In addition we are in a dilemma about them. On the one hand they can’t be dispensed with so easily and on the other hand they are vicious and make us stay egocentric like babies concerned only with when they will next be fed.

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