EPONYMITY MANIFESTO

EPONYMITY MANIFESTO


1. There are things in this world. One of them is language.

2. Scientists claim that we are one of only two species known to use representational language. The other is the honeybee.

3. Most delays are harmless.

4. If we think of language as a harmless delay, then we have made a sentence. If, on the other hand, language manifests as a delay that harms, we must make another sentence.

5. Language itself dwells in the interstices between sentences.

6. It follows, then, that while most sentences are harmless, what is rather more dangerous is the space between sentences. One word for this is ellipsis. Another is the line break.

7. All rational assertions have an irrational base.

8. Conversely, and as in mathematics, all irrational bases, multiplied, yield rational and irrational assertions, in alternating sequence.

9. Another term for this is grammar.

10. In the alternating sequence of positive and negative space--rational and irrational assertions--that constitutes grammar, the sentence emerges.