The copula is a hell-borne Hydra. The serpent in semantics. The bastard link at the heart of our mongrel language. The copula is the “is”. Ever-dependable, just when you think you are without it, it worms its way back in. Philosophers are famously unable agree on whether a chair is real or not, but they tend to agree that there are, all in all, three copulas. Alongside the is of identity (“Twice two is four”) and the is of predication (“Socrates is mortal”), there is the black-coffee-swilling existential is (there is a constitution and it says the Federal Government is responsible for quarantine).

Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein—not a law firm—believed the form of ordinary language disguised thought. Analysis of ordinary language reveals the logical structure of language and the real commitments of claims. Though Wittgenstein eventually left this supergroup citing creative differences, he went on believing that similarities in the form of language led to confusions:

               As long as there is still a verb “to be” that looks as though it functions in the same way as                “to eat” and “to drink” ... people will keep stumbling over the same cryptic difficulties &                      staring at something that no explanation seems capable of clearing up.

Some linguists have taken such sentiments to heart. E-Prime—not a transformers character—is the name of a linguistic program that proposes an alternate version of English wherein the verb “to be” is never used (if you ever see a linguist with an ACAB sticker, they could be a supporter of E-Prime—All Copulas Are Bastards). The removal of the copula would likely ruin Hamlet:

               [...], or not [...], that [...] the question:

               Whether [...] nobler in the mind to suffer...

But there would be an economic stimulus from all the hymns that need new musical accompaniments. The setting- prayers-to-music sector would boom as it did when Hillsong went mainstream. Lines such as:

               Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Will be far catchier once rewritten as:

               The poor in spirit receive blessings, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

Like all revolutions, E-Prime treads a treacherous path between light and dark. On the path of light, “Honey is sweet” becomes “Honey tastes sweet”; on the park of darkness, it becomes “Honey possesses sweetness.” If, then, honey tastes sweet because it possesses sweetness, we have a world in which sweetness exists apart from taste. Perhaps instead all that honey possesses is the capacity to produce the taste of sweetness in us. This might seem like semantics, but it is not entirely a minor matter. How we interpret language changes our conception of the world.

Why do we say that Hamlet is an angsty teen: because it says so in the Dramatis Personae or because Hamlet does angsty teen things? If it is the former, what if Hamlet never does any angsty teen things? Can he still be called an angsty teen? On the latter scheme, Hamlet remains an angsty teen insofar as he does angsty teen things; once he ceases to do them we can no longer describe him as an angsty teen. Again, this is not entirely a minor matter. It cannot be truly said of someone that they are funny if they do not say funny things. But why, then, did publishers print a book of David Koch’s best jokes?

Any true fan of Industry Superfund advertisements knows that “past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.” Others say that form is temporary, class is permanent. Well beside class, in the sporting sense, all is temporary, and everything is form. One is funny whilst they are in the form of being funny, of saying funny things. For some reason, society persists in thinking that qualities are immutable and people cannot change. But if we are only entitled to say that one is an X because they express the characteristics of being an X—that John is funny because he says funny things—then it seems we must consider the basis of society. If people are simply the sum of their acts, then they are as they act, and as they may act differently so they may be different.