English Prime or E-Prime

English-Prime (or E-prime) began with Alfred Korzybski and his 1933 book, Science and Sanity. Simply put, E-Prime requires us to abandon all forms of the to be verb, especially as give rise to formulations of "identity" and "predication" -- i.e. "This is that" and "This is so."

Korzybski and his followers urged the adoption of E-prime in technical and scientific writing as a sort of "semantic hygiene" to prevent logical error, emotional distortion, and "demonological thinking." Writers of all disciplines, however, can benefit from the practice of selecting strong, active, precise verbs and freeing themselves of the static worldview that "to be" identity formulations reinforce.

To understand the difference between English and E-prime, we need only listen for the meaning in these sentences and in their E-prime translations --

The moon is biggest when it is just above the horizon.
The moon looks biggest when seen just above the horizon.

Electrons are particles.   
Electrons appear as particles under certain conditions.

This is true.
Available evidence supports this hypothesis.

An error having been made in the calculation of plant production, operations were halted and workers were laid off.
The plant manager made an error in calculating production, bringing operations to a halt and costing workers their jobs.

As Kellogg and Bourland (see below) suggest, "E-Prime fosters a worldview in which the user perceives situations as changeable rather than static, and in which verbal formulations derived from experience indicate possibilities rather than certainties." E-prime also prohibits the dodge of the passive voice and places responsibility on the sentence subject, where it belongs.


Try translating this paragraph yourself:

The vision of composition that emerges from Dewey is grounded on a relationship of experience and communication that is mediated by the practice of mind. In other words, this means that we must pay equal attention to the craftsmanship of language and the emotions that drive our acts of self-expression and self-creation. . . . Dewey’s hope is that through critique and commendation, production and reflection, instructors will provide students with what is for Dewey the overriding goal of education – a goal Fishman describes “increasing their power over their own learning.” For it is only when students claim this power themselves that they will continue to grow when they leave the classroom. Success in writing will then be judged not by whether they accurately represent their thoughts or resist dominant discourses but whether the words they create inspire themselves and those around them to experience the joy of Becoming in the midst of their own writing.


Learn more about E-Prime

You can find background information and extended examples on a number of Web sites, including those below. Note: All appear in E-prime.

Theoretical discussions of E-prime:
TOWARD UNDERSTANDING E-PRIME by Robert Anton Wilson (http://www.nobeliefs.com/eprime.htm)

E-PRIME: A LAYMAN'S PERSPECTIVE
(http://www.ctlow.ca/E-Prime/E-Prime.html)

An E-prime tutorial:
http://www.angelfire.com/nd/danscorpio/ep2.html