Talk:E-Prime
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the E-Prime article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 31 days  |
 | The question of whether this article should itself be written in E-Prime is discussed here, as well as in other threads. It is suggested that rewriting an article in E-Prime should not overrule WP:TONE ("follow the style used by reliable sources, while remaining clear and understandable"). |
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the E-Prime article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
| Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 31 days |
correction
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
Bad Poem Translation
"Honey tastes sweet,/And so do you." does not convey the same meaning as "Honey is sweet,/And so are you." The adjective "sweet" takes on a different meaning in the 4th line of the poem which is completely lost in the translation. This is somewhat creepy and a terrible example of E-Prime. Perhaps there is a better translation of this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.88.141 (talk) 06:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
- I thought so too. Besides the poem is very trivial. A more difficult challenge would be this famous sentence from the King James Bible, Romans Chapter 13: "For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." Borock (talk) 09:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
- Religious texts often suffer from an excess of "is". Sicherman (talk) 03:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Jehovah's Witnesses appear to have already gone halfway to E' on this passage in their formal-equivalent New World Translation: "for there is no authority except by God; the existing authorities stand placed in their relative positions by God." (Romans 13:1, NWT) Change the first words to "for no authority exists" to complete the translation. --Damian Yerrick (talk) 16:31, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
- The comparison with the NWT in the article gave the appearance that the NWT takes a similar approach throughout that volume, which is not the case. I have therefore removed the comparison. The examples provided in the article already make the point.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
More examples
I would like to ask that more examples be added. Specifically for the Examples section to be integrated with the "Different functions of "to be"" section, to provide an example of each.
Full Decent (talk) 02:00, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Arabic
Arabic does have a verb 'to be' in the present tense - yakuun (يَكُون) It is not used in the same way as in English of course. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.47.182.20 (talk) 12:45, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
What about "maybe"?
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "maybe" comes (unsurprisingly) from "(it) may be."[1] Should we maybe add "maybe" to the article, or does "maybe" maybe qualify for exception according to an authoritative source? --DigitalBluster (talk) 19:06, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
- Good thing you mentioned 'an authoritative source'. There is a wikipedia policy WP:RS about this. According to it, you may add anything that makes sense, provided it is discussed in authoritative sources and you provide a foootnote to it. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:25, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Change to Bible example
Attempting to fulfill a recent citation request, I found numerous excerpts from the New American Standard Bible, rendered into E-Prime by Dr. David F. Maas. These do not include Romans 13:1, which was used as an example here. I went ahead and changed the example (I chose a verse from the Sermon on the Mount, just because), which also meant changing the original from the King James. If anyone objects, well, you know what to do. --DigitalBluster (talk) 07:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Good job. Now, how about fixing the 'A in W' example? By the way, these examples are a good demonstration how, despite good intentions, e-prime often actually messes with the intention of the phrase rather than fixes it: while the "kingdom" part is OK, the "blessing" part is screwed, if someone wants to dive deeply into theology. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:54, 24 June 2014 (UTC)