E-Prime

Also known as É, E′

E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime, sometimes É or E′) denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be.

Described at

E-Prime - Conlang Profile

langmaker.github.io →

Language Name E-Prime Language Author David Bourland Site NA Broken Link No Language Type logical language Uniqueness Richard Kennaway writes E-Prime is the English language, with all forms and uses of the verb "to be" omitted. It was invented by David Bourland for reasons connected with General Semantics. Very roughly and briefly: According to General Semantics, there are certain habits of thought which, it is argued, are conducive to misevaluation of the world, and generally un-sane functioning. They may be summed up as "identification" or "unconsciousness of abstraction": the failure to distinguish words from the things they refer to, concepts in one's mind from things out there, inferences from the data they are based on, value judgements from inferences, etc. In English, identifications are often expressed using the verb "to be", and "to be" is often used to express identifications. The two do not coincide, but there is a large overlap. Hence E-Prime, which by blocking the natural way one might express such identifications, forces one to think more carefully about what one really wants to mean. Dictionary No Etymologies No Grammar No Sample Texts No Unique Script No Primer No Babel Text No Submitted By Jeffrey Henning Date Submitted Monday, September 20, 2004 Date Edited Monday, September 20, 2004 Date To Headline Tuesday, September 28, 2004

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Wikidata facts

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short name: E′
described at URL: langmaker.github.io/db/mdl_eprime.htm

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~11 min read

Article

11 sections

Contents

History
Functions of "to be"
Examples
Rationale
Psychological effects
Criticisms
Publications
See also
Footnotes
References
External links

E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime, sometimes É or E′) denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be.

E-Prime excludes forms such as be, being, been, present tense forms (am, is, are), past tense forms (was, were) along with their positive and negative contractions (e.g. ''isn't, aren't, wasn't, weren't, ain't, twas, I'm, we're, you're, he's, she's, it's, they're, there's, that's'').