Talk:E-Prime

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Change to Bible example[edit]

Attempting to fulfill a recent citation request, I found numerous excerpts from the New American Standard Bible, rendered into E-Prime by Dr. David F. Maas. These do not include Romans 13:1, which was used as an example here. I went ahead and changed the example (I chose a verse from the Sermon on the Mount, just because), which also meant changing the original from the King James. If anyone objects, well, you know what to do. --DigitalBluster (talk) 07:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Good job. Now, how about fixing the 'A in W' example? By the way, these examples are a good demonstration how, despite good intentions, e-prime often actually messes with the intention of the phrase rather than fixes it: while the "kingdom" part is OK, the "blessing" part is screwed, if someone wants to dive deeply into theology. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:54, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes[edit]

, that what i noticed also "The poor in spirit receive blessings, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. " For first, in a way "blessings" it self appears to be word that is "telling how and what it is" but what me want to say is that, one does not receive necessarily blessings because they have kingdom in heaven. Also in a way "poor in spirit" is what we would not want to use in proper clear speak. As there is meanings behind the states that is told to be "boor in spirit". "(the ones said to be)Poor in the Spirit, appear to receive Kingdom of Heaven (that is considered to be a blessing)"

As we do not really know, who are poor in spirit, we not even know what is spirit and what is meant under the spirit on that spot, people just assume that it is probably (Western Version of)intelligence, or the ones that lack mental stability (but why they lack it and when, how?) or more often also interpreted as the poor people who is assumed to have smaller mind and understanding because of the poor state of life that would normally limit to receive knowledge (as assumed).

As in the end, people should have (in my view) be able to express all the sentences in pure truth also besides illustrated sentences. So how can anyone translate the meaning of this if we lack knowing what is behind the words? The real meaning.

Also the sentence "receive blessings" can not we know to be true as is it One blessing or how much of an amount of blessings to get a Kingdom of Heaven?

So in the end perhaps most near truth we can come to this sentence:

"Simple people are lucky to inherit Kingdom of Heaven" or "What a luck Simple people heave to inherit Kingdom of Heaven"

[1] Waffa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.71.44.92 (talk) 22:05, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Neither of those constructions are grammatical in English, without the definite article (aside from the "Simple" and "heave" and "a luck" typos; I don't mean to nitpick, just clarifying that I'm talking about something else). "Kingdom" is not a mass-noun like "soup".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Expressing "the film was good"[edit]

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)

Unclear wording[edit]

In "By substituting these three verbs ...", which "three verbs" are referred to is unclear.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:01, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

reasoning[edit]

"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[edit]

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)

An important issue which is not really discussed directly[edit]

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)
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