E-Prime

E-Prime (short for English-Prime, sometimes denoted É or E′) is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions and archaic forms.

Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing.^[1] For example, the sentence "the film was good" could not be expressed under the rules of E-Prime, and the speaker might instead say "I liked the film", "the film made me laugh", or "the film has value". The E-Prime versions communicate the writer's experience rather than judgment, making it harder for the writer or reader to confuse opinion with fact.

Kellogg and Bourland use the term "Deity mode of speech" to refer to misuse of the verb to be, which "allows even the most ignorant to transform their opinions magically into god-like pronouncements on the nature of things".^[2]

History

D. David Bourland, Jr., who had studied under Alfred Korzybski, devised E-Prime as an addition to Korzybski's general semantics in the late 1940s.^[3] Bourland published the concept in a 1965 essay entitled "A Linguistic Note: Writing in E-Prime" (originally published in General Semantics Bulletin). The essay quickly generated controversy within the general semantics field, partly because practitioners of general semantics sometimes saw Bourland as attacking the verb 'to be' as such, and not just certain usages.

Bourland collected and published three volumes of essays in support of his innovation. The first (1991), co-edited by Paul Dennithorne Johnston, bore the title: To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology ^[4] For the second, More E-Prime: To Be or Not II, published in 1994, he added a third editor, Jeremy Klein. Bourland and Johnston then edited a third book, E-Prime III: a third anthology, published in 1997.

Korzybski (1879–1950) determined that two forms of the verb 'to be'—the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication—had structural problems. For example, the sentence "The coat is red" has no observer, the sentence "We see the coat as red" (where "we" indicates observers) appears more specific, and describes light waves and colour as determined by the human brain.

Korzybski pointed out the circularity of many dictionary definitions, and suggested adoption of the mathematical practice of acknowledging some minimal ensemble of primitive notions as necessarily 'undefined'; he chose 'structure', 'order', and 'relation'. He wrote of those that do not lend themselves to explication in words, but only by exhibiting how to use them in sentences. Korzybski advocated raising one's awareness of structural issues generally through training in general semantics.

Different functions of "to be"

In the English language, the verb 'to be' (also known as the copula) has several distinct functions:

• identity, of the form "noun copula definite-noun" [The cat is my only pet]; [The cat is Garfield]
• class membership, of the form "definite-noun copula noun" [Garfield is a cat]
• class inclusion, of the form "noun copula noun" [A cat is an animal]
• predication, of the form "noun copula adjective" [The cat is furry]
• auxiliary, of the form "noun copula verb" [The cat is sleeping]; [The cat is being bitten by the dog]. The examples illustrate two different uses of 'be' as an auxiliary. In the first, 'be' is part of the progressive aspect, used with "-ing" on the verb; in the second, it is part of the passive, as indicated by the perfect participle of a transitive verb.
• existence, of the form "there copula noun" [There is a cat]
• location, of the form "noun copula place-phrase" [The cat is on the mat]; [The cat is here]

Bourland sees specifically the "identity" and "predication" functions as pernicious, but advocates eliminating all forms for the sake of simplicity. In the case of the "existence" form (and less idiomatically, the "location" form), one might (for example) simply substitute the verb "exists". Other copula-substitutes in English include taste, feel, smell, sound, grow, remain, stay, and turn, among others a user of E-prime might use instead of to be.

Rationale

Bourland and other advocates also suggest that use of E-Prime leads to a less dogmatic style of language that reduces the possibility of misunderstanding and/or conflict.^[5][6]

Alfred Korzybski justified the expression he coined — "the map is not the territory" — by saying that "the denial of identification (as in 'is not') has opposite neuro-linguistic effects on the brain from the assertion of identity (as in 'is')."

Discouraged forms and rationale for typical replacements

To be belongs to the set of irregular verbs in English, and some people, especially those who learned English as a second language, may have difficulty recognizing all its forms. In addition, speakers of colloquial English frequently contract forms of to be after pronouns or before the word not. E-Prime would prohibit the following words as forms of to be:

Disallowed words

• be
• being
• been
• am
• is; isn't
• are; aren't
• was; wasn't
• were; weren't
• Contractions formed from a pronoun and a form of to be:
  • I'm
  • you're; we're; they're
  • he's; she's; it's
  • there's; here's
  • where's; how's; what's; who's
  • that's
• E-Prime likewise prohibits contractions of to be found in nonstandard dialects of English, such as the following:
  • ain't
  • hain't (when derived from "ain't" rather than "haven't")
  • whatcha (derived from "what are you")
  • yer (when derived from "you are" rather than "your")

Allowed words

E-prime does not prohibit the following words, because they do not derive from forms of to be. Some of these serve similar grammatical functions (see auxiliary verbs).

• become;
• has; have; having; had (I've; you've)
• do; does; doing; did
• can; could
• will; would (they'd)
• shall; should
• ought
• may; might; must
• remain
• equal

Distinctions between self and others

Scholars of general semantics emphasize distinctions between different perceptions at different points in space (called indexing) over any universal God's eye view or assumed-shared or collective identity. By encouraging clarity on the active subject that "does" or wants or believes something, and disallowing passive constructions about the state of affairs (a common use of "to be"), E-Prime makes it more difficult to hide assumptions in statements about The Other or equivalent constructions such as "they" or "most people" or "the public" or "the taxpayer". E-Prime disallows forms of statement such as "they say X is Y" or "most people are into Z" or "the taxpayer is angry" while allowing statements such as "a clear majority of people say X always coexists with Y" or "most people approve of Z" or "the taxpayer doesn't like measure Q" or "lots of taxpayers express anger about Q".

Distinctions between past, present and future

"Is", "is." "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.

— Robert Anton Wilson, The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, as spoken by Sigismundo Celine.

E-Prime also discourages broad assertions crossing boundaries between past, present and future. General semantics' practice of dating and modern theories of scenario analysis and financial risk (based on statistics) emphasize a need to keep time frames of measurement and analysis carefully aligned. This avoids confusion between past events (which cannot be changed), the present (which one can test but not generally change) and future events (which one still has time to change even on a large scale), which can prevent noticing or taking an action to improve a future outcome.

Replacing statements including "to be" with those using becomes, remains and equals divides perception of, and expressions about, time more operationally into actual cognitive categories that humans know how to act upon:

• To claim that one thing equals another is a claim only about the present with no reference to the future or the past—it can be disproved by direct testing (see falsifiability).
• To claim that a thing remains another is to assert that a relationship exists in the present that was also true in the past, without reference to the future at all—it can be disproved by reference to history or memory.
• To claim that one thing becomes another asserts a relationship between the present and the future, without reference to the past at all—it can be demonstrated undesirable or potentially false (though not disproved) with reference to intent.

Since history and memory (representations of or belief about the past) are distinct in all philosophy and ontology from plan, vision or intent (representations of our will to change the future), statements that confuse these are category errors: No statement about history or memory can imply a similar statement about a plan or vision or intent, nor vice versa - a distinction sometimes credited to Hume who distinguished also the morality of a statement from its truth. The very different ways that humans process memory or agree on history (about the past) must be, according to most philosophers, kept distinct from ways we employ logic on snapshots of axioms about our own immediate present and the ways we plan and envision an uncertain and collective future. By contrast, theology does assert high value for some unquestioned and eternal past-to-future equivalences. By substituting these three verbs, even without clarifying morality (ought, shall, should, must) or the actor(s) who do or did something, becomes/remains/equals makes clear what time frame of relationship is asserted, and disallows assuming one stable past/present/future timeline - known as single scenario planning or blind linearity and considered a grave error in risk analysis.

Other common replacement forms

Users of E-Prime also generally encourage other replacements that clarify subject, object, time frame, intent and scope of relationships, replacing:

• statements assuming possession or ownership ("he is the landlord") with more operationally exact ones ("he owns the building and manages it") that describe the implications that the title or credential assumes.
• statements assuming a combination of intention and probability ("they are moving") to distinguish the likely series of events and dependencies ("if they can sell their house they might move to Agrestic or if they can't, to Gardendale") in which the probability that an attempt to do something complex may fail is explicitly acknowledged.
• statements assuming moral rightness or desirability of a state ("she is happy") with those that verify the difficulty of determining the state ("she smiles a lot, she seems happy, she would say something if her husband made her angry", etc.).

Influence in psychotherapy

While teaching at the University of Florida, Alfred Korzybski counseled his students to

eliminate the infinitive and verb forms of "to be" from their vocabulary, whereas a second group continued to use "I am," "You are," "They are" statements as usual. For example, instead of saying, "I am depressed," a student was asked to eliminate that emotionally primed verb and to say something else, such as, "I feel depressed when ..." or "I tend to make myself depressed about ..."

Korzybski observed improvement "of one full letter grade" by "students who did not generalize by using that infinitive".^[7] Although this took place before the invention of E-Prime, it does show the application of general semantics to psychotherapy.

Albert Ellis advocated the use of E-Prime, especially in writing, as a way to avoid muddled and blame-based thinking that distresses psychotherapy patients.^[8] According to Ellis, rational emotive behavior therapy "has favored E-Prime more than any other form of psychotherapy and I think it is still the only form of therapy that has some of its main books written in E-Prime."^[9]

Neuro-linguistic programming uses E-Prime as a technique. NLP's theoretical basis relies heavily on Korzybski's and Bourland's work. ^[10]

Examples

The following short examples illustrate some of the ways that standard English writing can be modified to use E-Prime.

Works written in E-Prime

• Scoundrel Days: a memoir by Brentley Frazer
• Under The Eye of God, a science fiction novel by David Gerrold
• Rewild or Die, by Urban Scout
• A Covenant of Justice, a science fiction novel by David Gerrold
• Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by David Gerrold has a chapter about (and written in) E-Prime
• The New American Standard Bible in E-Prime, composed by Dr.David F. Maas^[12]
• Quantum Psychology, by Robert Anton Wilson
• A New Guide to Rational Living, a self-help book by Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper
• Overcoming Procrastination, by Albert Ellis
• Sex and the Liberated Man, by Albert Ellis
• Anger: How to Live With and Without It, by Albert Ellis
• Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better, Albert Ellis (This self-help book closely follows E-prime rules but "is not written in E-prime because I found it interferes somewhat with readability", as Ellis noted on page 2.)
• Laws of Form by G. Spencer-Brown (except for one statement)
• An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson, by Eric Wagner

Criticisms

Many authors have questioned E-Prime's effectiveness at improving readability and reducing prejudice (Lakoff, 1992; Murphy, 1992; Parkinson, 1992; Kenyon, 1992; French, 1992, 1993; Lohrey, 1993). These authors observed that a communication under the copula ban can remain extremely unclear and imply prejudice, while losing important speech patterns, such as identities and identification. Further, prejudices and judgments that are made are more difficult to notice or refute. James D. French, a computer programmer at the University of California, Berkeley, summarized ten arguments against E-Prime (in the context of general semantics) as follows:^[13]

1. The elimination of a whole class of sentences results in fewer alternatives and is likely to make writing less, rather than more, interesting. One can improve bad writing more by reducing use of the verb 'to be' than by eliminating it.
2. "Effective writing techniques" are not relevant to general semantics as a discipline, and therefore should not be promoted as general semantics practice.
3. The context often ameliorates the possible harmful effects from the use of the is-of-identity and the is-of-predication, so it is not necessary to eliminate all such sentences. For example, "George is a Judge" in response to a question of what he does for a living would not be a questionable statement.
4. To be statements do not only convey identity but also asymmetrical relations ("X is higher than Y"); negation ("A is not B"); location ("Berlin is in Germany"); auxiliary ("I am going to the store") etc., forms we would also have to sacrifice.
5. Eliminating to be from English has little effect on eliminating identity. For example, a statement of apparently equal identification, "The silly ban on copula continues," can be made without the copula assuming an identity rather than asserting it, consequently hampering our awareness of it.
6. Identity-in-the-language is not the same thing as the far more important identity-in-reaction (identification). General semantics cuts the link between the two through the practice of silence on the objective levels, adopting a self-reflexive attitude, e.g., "as I see it" "it seems to me" etc., and by the use of quotation marks—without using E-Prime.
7. The advocates of E-Prime have not proven that it is easier to eliminate the verb to be from the English language than it is to eliminate just the is-of-identity and the is-of-predication. It may well be easier to do the latter for many people.
8. One of the best languages for time-binding is mathematics, which relies heavily on the notion of equivalence and equality. For the purposes of time-binding, it may be better to keep to be in the language while only cutting the link between identity-in-the-language and identification-in-our-reactions.
9. A civilization advances when it can move from the idea of individual trees to that of forest. E-Prime tends to make the expression of higher orders of abstraction more difficult, e.g. a student is more likely to be described in E-Prime as "She attends classes at the university".
10. E-Prime makes no distinction between statements that cross the principles of general semantics and statements that do not. It lacks consistency with the other tenets of general semantics and should not be included into the discipline.

According to an article (written in E-Prime and advocating a role for E-Prime in ESL and EFL programs) published by the Office of English Language Programs of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in the State Department of the United States, "Requiring students to avoid the verb to be on every assignment would deter students from developing other fundamental skills of fluent writing."^[14]

See also

• General semantics
• English passive voice
• Grammatical voice
• Constrained writing
• Linguistic prescription
• Linguistic relativity

References

Footnotes

External links

• Beyond Is: Creative Writing with English Prime by Brentley Frazer
• E-Prime! – The Fundamentals, by D. David Bourland, Jr. Accessed: 8 December 2015.
• Speaking in E-Prime - by E. W. Kellogg III. Accessed: 8 December 2015.
• Can E-Prime make us better writers? - an article about style
• Toward understanding E-prime
• E-prime: The Spirit and the Letter, by Ralph E. Kenyon Jr.
• Discovering E-Prime, by Elaine C. Johnson
• E-Prime and Linguistic Revision, by C. A. Hilgartner