
Toward Understanding E-Prime (2001) - benbreen
http://www.nobeliefs.com/eprime.htm
======
fapjacks
If this had been written by anyone else, I would not have read it in full, let
alone considered its theses. The idea(s) seemed abhorrently trivial at first
but in the end, as with many things of this nature, I am -- badum-psh! -- not
so militant against this word or the people that use it. And furthermore,
after giving it some thought, I would turn it back around and say that the
word "is" bears no fault here but instead lies with this worldview which
asserts that the word "is" represents an absolute, static, and singular
essence of being, instead of a temporary avatar created by circumstance. This
may sound like a weird transition, but the stoics were talking about this (at
length) thousands of years ago, and it really cuts at the core of the argument
presented here: Who is -- badum-psh! -- the master of your mind? Because the
person making this argument I think has clearly ceded control of their mind to
an external force whenever a person uses the word "is". It may not be such a
popular opinion these days, but I think the world could certainly do with less
externalization and more introspective critical thought. I'm on board with the
assertions of some form of mind control in advertising slogans. However that
is kind of the point, right?

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chippy
I once spent a whole week using e-prime. I wrote everything, text, emails,
social media postings in e-prime. I allowed myself to speak "normally" for
that week, but the following week I tried to only speak using e-prime.

I found trying to only speak in e-prime ridiculously hard as familiar phrases
that I would normally use unconsciously, I had to discount consciously. I used
a notepad to tell people that I had trouble talking right now because of an
experiment which helped!

Writing in e-prime had more benefits. I think non violent communication (NVC)
has similar benefits. It appeared like the emails had greater objectivity than
before and less "blame". I think I spent more time editing stuff (including
this comment) though!

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lukifer
'"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

~~~
phkahler
Am, is, are, was, were.

I am posting on HN. My post is nested under another one. There were a few
others prior to mine.

~~~
ptah
it's all 1s and 0s. there is no post

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the_other
I find e-prime very useful now and then. It helps highlight the people,
feelings or phenomena and their interactions and effects. It helps avoid
assumptions. It helps disentangle causes and effects, sites of action or loci
of emotion. Other commenters have noted that it helps avoid assigning power to
external forces (e.g. "it is raining"). I agree. The existence of such forces
gets harder to assert the more you avoid the "is" of attribution.

You can also have fun with it. It benefits from terseness. You can also use it
to finely qualify your ideas, in time, in location, and with ownership.

------
pmoriarty
_" E-PRIME, abolishing all forms of the verb "to be," has its roots in the
field of general semantics, as presented by Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book,
Science and Sanity..."_

The following article explores some interesting connections between Korzybski
and various science fiction authors, including L. Ron Hubbard, Robert
Heinlein, and Philip K Dick.

[1] - [https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-eccentric-polish-count-who-
influ...](https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-eccentric-polish-count-who-influenced-
classic-sfs-g-1631001935)

------
benbreen
Previous HN discussion of the Wikipedia entry for E-Prime:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10688201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10688201)

~~~
dang
And from 2009:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=419895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=419895)

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foobar_
Is it Sapir-Whorf or the belief systems that limit the thoughts ? Belief
systems seem to be akin to a game and language seems to be the physics engine.

------
bediger4000
I find that writing documentation in E-Prime helps. E-Prime helps me
distinguish name from value from type. Confusion of those three aspects often
arises with lazy use of "to be". Reducing that name/value/type confusion of
in-code commentary makes a big difference.

------
sstephant
What about mathematics?

A finite field appears to be commutative. Or A finite field is commutative. ?

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sneakernets
Good! Now, let's ditch indefinite and definite articles. Yet more unneeded
fluff.

