[MD] I think I am a verb...

[Arlo Bensinger]

All,

While I am making my way through Hofstadter's "I am a Strange Loop", 
I stumbled onto this while doing a routine web search for "uberty". 
As I have learned, our former president Ulysses Grant made the 
following statement shortly before succumbing to cancer.

"The fact is I think I am a verb instead of a personal pronoun. A 
verb is anything that signifies to be; to do; or to suffer. I signify 
all three." (Grant)

This sentiment is examined in the aptly titled "I think I am a Verb" 
by Thomas Sebeok, you can read the first part of the book here using 
Google's Book Search 
(http://books.google.com/books?id=PBEBnvop2w0C&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=sign+three+uberty&source=web&ots=jV2LkV27el&sig=K9II0do1L21M4wzb-bmBleLIZFQ&hl=en#PPT18,M1)

I'd skip past the preface and acknowledgements and go right to 
chapter one (self-titled, I think I am a Verb) about half way down the file.

Be warned, Sebeok is not writing for a lay audience, but an audience 
versed in the discourse of semiotics.

However, I do find it MOQish that the sentiment of the "self" 
expressed by Grant is about "process" or "activity" or "doing", 
rather than as a static, objectified "thing".

Arlo