This Week’s Tweak: E-Prime with LiteMind
Get your permission slips ready, because we’re going on a field trip this week. We’re off to visit Luciano Passuello’s latest Litemind post: Sharpen Your Critical Thinking With E-Prime.
What is E-Prime, you ask?
Short for English Prime, E-Prime is a form of the English langauge which makes this sentence (and the last one) impossible.
See, the verb “to be” has no place in E-Prime - all forms of the verb “to be” are eliminated, including be, is, are, am, was and were. So using E-Prime, you can’t ask “What is E-Prime?”
Seems bizarre, I know.. but the verb “to be” often muddies up meaning, and frequently causes confusion between opinion and fact. For instance, “The movie was good” is opinion, but it’s stated like it’s a fact. “I liked the movie” reflects the actual meaning a bit better.
Why Experiment With E-Prime?
Shaking up your language habits is great mental exercise, forcing your neural patterns out of their accustomed ruts and forging new pathways.
And this particular language exercise forces you to think about what you, and others, really mean by what you say. Becoming successful with E-Prime requires making distinctions between fact and opinion, the often-hidden acting subject vs the acted upon object, and so on… all important parts of critical thinking.
And No, This Post Isn’t In E-Prime
I thought about applying the concept here, but decided it complicate my writing style a bit too much. I can sometimes be too conciliatory in my wording, and have slowly taught myself not to be afraid of using a tone of authority… “The sky is blue ” instead of “I perceive the sky as blue”.
Even so, it’s a really good exercise. And in his post, Luciano points out other potential benefits, explains a bit more about how to approach E-Prime, and provides some really useful tutorial links, including an online E-Prime tool that checks a block of text for the correct syntax.
So gather up your coats and sack lunches, and trot over to Luciano’s post. Give yourself a quick lesson on E-Priming it, leave him a comment in E-Prime, then trot back here and leave another E-Primed comment.
Then consider yourselves Tweaked for the week!
Here’s the link again: Litemind: Sharpen Your Critical Thinking With E-Prime.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
E-prime… hmmm interesting. I’ve bookedmarked Luciano’s post and will read it later. I’m always looking for ways to increase my language abilities.
Uhm actually you used the word “is” in your sentence by saying “E-prime is a form of the English language”
probably could’ve worded it “this form of the English language…” Did I understand it correctly?
I also use a model I for communicating clearly. It emphasizes speaking via using your senses and what you observe, hear, taste or touch. It promotes more authenticity and less threatening approaches. It also means more objectively speaking one’s mind. Phew such a difficult language, E-prime. Do I pass?
Craig Looking forward to hearing what you think of the exercise!
whizmo Yes, you understood it correctly, I just didn’t write this post in E-Prime : ) I’m not sure if the next to last last sentence of your second comment is fully E-Prime compliant- do I spy an implied “is” in there?