Talk:E-Prime

What about the temporal meaning "to be" can have, e.g. "Breakfast is at 8 o'clock"?

I think that falls into the category of "location".

Need more examples. Could you do a passage in journey to the centre of the earth in e-prime? Please reply in E prime.

As our heroes journeyed towards the centre of the earth, they suddenly realized a profound truth: that E-Prime sucks, that E-Prime rapes your mind, murder it, munches it, and spits it out. --[1] :)

David Gerrold wrote two entire novels in E prime, Under the Eye of God and A Covenant of Justice. It might be appropriate to point these out in the examples section? 83.104.250.235

Actually A Covenant of Justice isn't entirely in E-Prime. Does anyone know of other novels written in E-Prime?

I don't know of any novels, but I do know of a non-fiction book written in E-Prime: "Quantum Psychology" by Robert Anton Wilson. Widipedia has a stub on it. Studentofisless 08:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An anonymous user wrote:

CORRECTION: the inventor of E-Prime was a student and follower of Alfred Korzybski, Dr. Bourland.

W. Paul Tabaka http://Korzybski.Org

Should the article itself be in E-Prime?
The following sentence doesn't seem E-Prime to me, due to the use of are: There are of course different forms of the verb. --romanm 13:37, 21 Nov 2003 (CET)

That's now fixed. I mean, er, I fixed that. --Brion

Fair enough. It was written in E-Prime-Prime, a variant of E-Prime (that I just made up) that omits the pernicious "identity" and "predication" forms but allows the others (in this case, "existence"). —Ashley Y 21:05, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)

L. Michael Hall in his Communication magic mentions E-Choice, a variant of E-Prime that seems the same as your E-Prime-Prime. Any knowledge of E-Choice, anybody? Mkoval 20:41, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The link "Working with E-Prime - http://www.generalsemantics.org/Education/WEPrime.htm " is dead.

As is the "Intro to E-Prime" link now (http://www.generalsemantics.org/Articles/TOBECRIT.HTM). 63.88.178.130 20:03, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

is it even possible to talk in the third person in e-prime? - plasticlax

Sure, why not? Instead of "He is amazing." one says, "He amazes people." E-Prime merely forces all equations to be reformed to include a context. The subject cannot be ascribed a trait without providing a context that trait comes from. "A is B-like" becomes "A appears B-like to so-and-so.". The E-Prime rules constrain english in such a way as to remove a certain kind of ambiguity. "A = B" by itself includes no context. A and B may both stand as tokens representing some third entity, and may be interchangable in some symbol system. A and B may refer to distinct entities which are functionally equivalent within some specific domain. E-Prime encourages the speaker or writer to include that extra information in the statement.

E-Prime adds redundant information in many cases. For example, I tried to phrase all the sentances in this comment as E-Prime just as an exercise for myself, but the context I added in each case could easily be inferred from nearby text both in and out of my comment. Most readers would probably find a more succinct style easier to read. Appropriately enough, E-Prime's value varies with the context the speaker or writer uses it in.--Crag

ok, but isn't third person always inferring? i mean, when you say "he amazes people," you still are not really providing context. you are assuming the omniscient position of someone like a narrator who simply "knows" what other people think. wouldn't it be more appropriate to eliminate the third person all together and say things like this: "many people have told me that they consider him amazing." to me that is even more honest. i HATE third person. it has no place in honest discussion or scientific inquiry because it pretends that the author is more than some finite being with subjective experiences. anyway, just a little rant. do you know a language (real or artificial) that goes farther than e-prime? - plasticlax

I find it interesting that you would say that, as it strikes me that writing from the NPOV eliminates the omniscient quality from writing. Wikipedia speaks in the third person, but it avoids making point-blank statements about what people think, do, or *cough*are*cough*. Combined with E-Prime, Wikipedia would probably seem even more neutral to the casual reader while increasing clarity in most cases. -Deicidus 06:42, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Article written in E-Prime considered a violation of npov.

This article about E-Prime being written in E-Prime is cute, but I consider it to be a violation of NPOV. The beliefs of the authors have clearly influenced the article. An article about E-Prime should be about E-Prime, and nothing more. No other purpose. Having the article be written in E-Prime is clearly biased and non-neutral. It attempts to show E-Prime as useful and worthy of advocacy by being an example of it. That an article written *about* E-Prime has been written by E-Prime speakers (therefore advocates?) in E-Prime is not neutral, or consistent with the rest of Wikipedia. Samrolken 09:42, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't entirely see this as an NPOV issue, but I basically agree. Articles should be written in Wikipedia house style, not according to the topic's style. Having part of the article in E-Prime to illustrate its use makes some sense. But not all of it. V V 21:07, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Besides, dictating that the article be written entirely in E-Prime is creating more work for editors (see m:instruction creep). Never sacrifice ease of expansion for... cuteness.

VV's right that a lengthy example of E-Prime would be an excellent illustration of E-Prime. However, I don't suggest keeping one section of the article itself in E-Prime, for the same reason as I cited above (instruction creep). Instead, let's have a two-column, side by side example (see article). • Benc • 21:11, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. People should be allowed to write in any manner they wish as long as it gets the point across, whether this article or any other. If someone happens to write a paragraph without the use of the word "is" where is the proof that they were consciously using E-prime? You want to go in modify it just to put a few "is's" in there because you're paranoid that the contents of paragraph are not objective? Content is what matters ..not the style of writing. RJII 18:48, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is, after all, en.wikipedia. Not whatever the E-Prime.wikipedia would be called. Hyacinth 02:43, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I consider E-Prime a very useful (but primitive) tool that aids (but doesn't automatically ensures) NPOV writing; and I do want to write wikipedia texts in E-Prime on occasion. Please don't insert extra "is:s" just out of spite. E-Prime should not be enforced on Wikipedia, but it definitely should be allowed; and everyone wanting to write NPOV should consider using it. --anon

I agree that Wikipedia ought to allow E-Prime but not to enforce it. To force anyone to use or not use forms of 'to be' seems unnecessary. However, the idea of an English Prime wikipedia intrigues me. Perhaps we ought to consider it. Then maybe we wouldn't have E-Prime proponents and detractors at each other's throats quite so much. Matt V. 10:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indicating presence?

How would one say they were present somewhere in E-prime? I can't think of any other way of saying "You were there", or "I will be there". Ryan Salisbury 21:43, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"You were there" becomes "You arrived there" or "You stayed there" or "You stood there" etc.

"I will be there" becomes "I will arrive there", etc.

When converting beingness into something else, one can ask oneself questions about that beingness: how does the writer know of it, what caused it, what was going on. E-Prime capitalizes on the idea that "beingness" has no meaning outside some defining context. Something cannot "be" without having some kind of relationship to the universe in which it exists. Rather than merely asserting that something is, E-Prime describes a part of that object's relationship to its universe. Even assertions about abstractions can be re-phrased in terms more specific than simple identity or equality. "A is A" could be re-phrased as "Attempts to deny or subvert an object's identity will lead to frustration." "One plus one is two" could be re-phrased as "The number 'two' represents the quantity composed of the unit value 'one' combined with itself."

This conversion process may result in necessarily verbose re-phrasings, and for that reason I doubt E-Prime will ever be popular in everyday speach or writing. However, E-Prime demands that the writer think carefully about what they mean and whether what they write matches it, which makes E-Prime a useful tool.

--Crag 01:31, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

One could also express "One plus one is two" in E-Prime, far less verbosely, as "One plus one equals two".

Right, but then what's the difference between that usage of an identity verb ("equals") and the prohibited "is"? Nothing but irrational OCD. Either avoid "equals" as well (which I do on the rare occasions when I write in E-Prime) or just forget about it.

Sally is fat. Sally equals fat. Hmm, that makes sense. Good point.--SpacemanAfrica 00:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedia Articles in E-Prime

Could anyone give any suggestions for writing encyclopedic articles in E-Prime? I've had the most trouble with introductory sentences. The notion of "beingness" seems to be integral to the traditional methods of starting articles, and nearly every article I've found starts by saying what the subject "is" or "was".

For example, in Prince of the South, the first sentence reads "Prince of the South...The Hits is an compilation album by rapper Mystikal released by Jive Records." All of the rephrasings that I can think of seem to take the sentence's emphasis off of "Prince of the South", the article's title. Can anyone recommend some good Wikipedia articles written in E-Prime? -- Creidieki 18:11, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Prince of the South...The Hits, a compilation album released by Jive Records, features the rapper Mystikal. - Not that I personally would worry too much about taking emphasis off "Prince of the South" in this immediate context: we have the title of the article and the bolding of the album title to remind us of the subject-matter. Take a wider view with the help of E-Prime! -- Personally, I try to use E-Prime wherever feasible - and I too frequently find the opening sentences of articles difficult. I fear that we have a hefty dose of the confusion between a dictionary and an encyclopaedia here. Sometimes it helps to start with something like: "The concept of X deals with ..." or "The word [or phrase] X refers to ...". But in the worst cases, where an article or a paragraph states: Person X was born in 999", I find myself falling back on structures as for Prince of the South above... - Pedant17 12:01, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

About the verbal continous forms...

As I understood E-prime, only some of the uses of the verb to be should be avoided. The verb "to be" in English acts also as a modal verb, for example, in present continous or past continous forms. Many other languages make use of other language resources for the continous sense. That's why I think that the translator didn't do a good job translating in "Alice in Wonderland", changing the verb "was reading" to "read". I think some of the sense ("while" the action was performed) disappeared, instead of precising the description. Anyway, maybe I misunderstood E-prime when learning it, or I misremember. :)

I guess we can call this discussion "to be" or not "to be".

Funny, all the while reading this, I was wondering what an E-prime version of Hamlet would look like... "To exist, or not to exist, that becomes the question" I suppose... Somehow, I don't think that'll ever catch on... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:07, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't seem really that hard to rephrase in principle, but if one does not have the poetic talent of Shakespeare (i.e., most of us) the result may not be as pleasing.

To live, or not to live: I ask this question:
Whether the mind hath more nobility to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh inherits, this consummation
We devoutly wish for; to die, to sleep
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, that rubs;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
....

Whig 12:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Advocates may also assert"?

I was struck by the phrasing, "E-Prime's advocates may also assert ..." and "Detractors might observe ...." The may and might seem like weaselly ways to get around the lack of attribution here. If these views and observations about E-Prime have indeed been expressed, I (and, I imagine, others) would find attribution and links useful. If these points originate with this article, then shouldn't they be presented as such? --Sharpner 18:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The criticism section seems a little mild. Doesn't the whole e-prime project miss a pretty fundamental point about not constraining ordinary language? not to mention that English has well over a billion speakers (including those who speak it as a second-language) with many regional variations and countless idioms, so the idea of promoting something as radical as cutting out a basic verb like 'to be' verges on the ludicrous. i'm all for sympathetic understanding of new and strange ideas but e-prime is, at the end of the day, fucking loopy.

(I would like to first and foremost admit to sometimes purposefully using E-Prime, at least in writing, and consider myself somewhat of a proponent.)

The above criticism would appear stronger to me if the anonymous critic had refrained from stating his or her opinion of E-Prime as an objective fact, and had perhaps used a word such as 'unreasonable' in place of 'f**cking loopy'. Please note that I do not intend this as a personal attack on the anonymous user, nor any sort of attack for that matter. I also agree with the initial criticism about insufficient attribution in the article.

I have done some study on the topic of E-Prime and General Semantics, and can say that the devisors, proponents, and users of English Prime seem to intend it as a means of freeing the English Language from several often unconsciously held ideas. They have laid out their reasons for doing so in at least several publications. If we strive to write articles with as much clarity and objectivity as possible, should not we do so in our discussions as well? To attack an idea with expletives, seemingly without an adequately researched understanding of it, does us far less good than would informed and cooperative discussion, or at least a polite statement of opinion. Studentofisless 08:39, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

'is' in the definition

I have inserted 'is' in the definition following the rules from Guide to writing better articles

We don't want an article on Basic English written in Basic English, or an article on a dialect written in this dialect, so why should we have E-Prime here?

I understand your position. I thought that having 'is' in the definition of E-Prime seemed to imply a disagreement with the principles of E-Prime, and thus violated the goal of objectivity in article writing. I see now that Wikipedia has adopted a linguistic theory which only allows forms of 'to be' to get used in the opening definition of an article. My apologies.

I do, however, find it inaccurate to state that any particular word 'is' that which it represents. I also think that it would improve our credibility to replace the 'is' in our opening definitions with 'means to some people', or maybe 'means to many people', and openly acknowledge that no true authority over the meanings of words or universal agreement upon meaning exists in the English language(s). Otherwise we find ourselves making meanings rather than reporting on them. Of course you may dismiss this as E-Prime mumbo-jumbo, and I expect that most will, but if you seriously look into this idea you may find yourself eventually in agreement. Matt V. 09:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]