Talk:E-Prime

Expressing “the film was good”
The lead states that “the film was good” could not be expressed under E-prime. What about “I considered it a good film”? Or does that contain a contracted “to be”—“I considered it [to be] a good film”? Either way, it may be worth mentioning in the lead. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 13:48, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No. the real trick that your sentence contains "I", i.e., it is a rephrasing with significantly changed structure of the sentence. You will find similar example in the article, e.g, "I see this film as good". Staszek Lem (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "Some people experience the film as good". Randy Kryn 10:45, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it's more that an utterance such as "the film was good" has the form of a universal objective statement about the world, whereas there is no doubt that "I considered it a good film" is an existential subjective statement about a personal taste. Sean O'Halpin 20:28, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep. This is a good illustration of why E-Prime-Prime, which our article does not seem to cover, is so much more practical: "It was a good film to me" and "I thought it was a good film" are equivalent and much more natural. In E-Prime-Prime it's permissible to use "the to be of identity" if it is explicitly qualified as a subjective perception. Whether derived directly from E-Prime-Prime or not, this is a big factor in nonviolent communication and several other approaches.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:06, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Nope. The correct equivalent, albeit clumsy, is "The film exhibited the property of goodness". And this zen-like trick creates loopholes in many arguments about e-prime; in particular, my version simply sweeps under the carpet the problem of universal vs. subjective. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:30, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

reasoning
"To be" is the language of observation, tending toward abbreviated observation, fueling ambiguity/confusion, often fueling conflict. Also tendinf toward judgment (right/wrong), fueling the fire of authoritarianism (domination/submission, reward/punishment). Rtdrury (talk) 18:29, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Self-e-primed
Please don't try to rewrite this article in e-prime. This will be invariably reverted, because this sub-language is not commonly accepted. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:57, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

i find this utterly sad... how little humour wikipedia have.

would it stay alive if done in the talk page? i wouldn't do it, anyway! 🤣 cregox (talk) 01:16, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

An important issue which is not really discussed directly
The article doesn't very directly confront the fact that linguistic scholars do not find E-Prime to be of much interest or usefulness (insofar as they've even heard of it). For academic linguists, E-Prime is another in a long line of ideas arrived at by non-linguists (Basic English is another) which does not have much validity from a linguistic point of view. Whoever the "scholars" mentioned in the third paragraph of the article are, it's a safe bet they are not reputable linguists... AnonMoos (talk) 18:53, 13 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Huh? There an extensive section "Criticisms". I added this to the lede. (BTW, the references of kins "third paragraph" are not very good. For example, I've just moved the 3rd para out of the lede as an unnecessary detail.) Staszek Lem (talk) 19:41, 13 February 2018 (UTC)


 * "Some support it, some criticize it" is fine as far as it goes -- but as I said, it doesn't really address the fact that that E-prime is about language, while scholars in the field of the scientific study of language (linguistics) overwhelmingly do not find it of much interest or usefulness (insofar as they've even heard of it, which many wouldn't have, because it's so remote from what they're mainly concerned with in their day-to-day work). Robin Lakoff is a somewhat well-known linguist; I don't recognize the other names.  It would be nice to have more material which is not sourced to General Semantics publications... AnonMoos (talk) 23:25, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

do you have any updates on this yourself, anon?

also, why do you give this "scholars grading" so much importance, anyway? i personally believe that pure logic beats scholarship any time, any where. 😁 cregox (talk) 01:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

i am depressed because
i wonder why the psychological effect compared 2 completely different things on that study.

"instead of saying i am depressed" differs a lot when replacing it for "i feel depressed when". unless we include "because" in there!

anyone knows why? cregox (talk) 01:21, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, yeah. I mean that is kind of the point, to make a subtle change in the effect of the statement. Herostratus (talk) 03:17, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Explanation needing in asymmetrical relations
What is followint text supposed to mean: """To be statements convey not only identity but also asymmetrical relations ("X heights more than Y"); negation ("A differs from B"); location ("Another castle contains the princess"); auxiliary ("He goes to the store") etc., forms that would also have to be excluded.""" at #Criticisms — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.116.165.130 (talk) 18:24, 13 September 2023 (UTC)