The English Prime Page:
To Exist or Not To Exist
English Prime means English without the verb "to be" or any of its
forms. These include: is, are, were, am, be, been. You may, in using
this language, use forms of the verb "to be" as helping verbs when the
main verb describes action such as "been running" but not as a state of
being verb such as "been sick."
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The idea for English Prime comes from a concern that "to be" verbs
tend to mislead our thinking. They do this in two ways: "to be" suggests
an equation, that saying "John is a football player." sounds like "John"
and "football player" equal one another, while in reality John has
many more categories in which he could fit; calling John a football
player sounds like you now know everything that can be known about
John.
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The verb "to be" also tends to suggest a frozen, static condition. The
universe constantly changes, but saying something "is" can lead us to
ignore changes. I like the comparison semanticists make between
"maps" and "territories": maps do not change as fast as the territories
they represent change. Using "is" reinforces the mistaken idea that the
territories-words represent continue on with no changes. To say, "This
is a computer." does not take into account the strange and wonderful
fact that computers evolve rapidly, and that the computer, the latest
model I could find, I use as I write this will probably fall out of date by
the timeyou read this. The expression "This is a computer." also fails to
take into account the fact that what I typed on five minutes ago has
significantly changed just by my using it.
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English Prime can also do a lot to pep up our writing. Replacing
forms of the verb "to be" with action verbs, gives writing a more alive
quality that you may prefer. Writing teachers like to go on about
"show" don't "tell." Using action verbs helps you to "show" while "to
be" verbs helps you to "tell."
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Some translations:
- English: I am crazy.
- English Prime: I do crazy things.
- English: Sally is a cheerleader.
- English Prime: Sally leads cheers for the football games.
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Try it. Speak for as long as you can without using any of the "to be"
forms. Perhaps more usefully, apply EPrime to a piece of writing you
are working with. Go through the writing, circle all of the "to be" verbs
and then translate them into EPrime.
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I need to warn you: I find this anything but easy. If you do learn how
to use eprime, however, your thinking will become more clear as will
your writing. Good luck, and let me know what happens: jot down your
adventures in the "comments" section below.
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If you'd like to learn more about English Prime, check out the book
list at the Institute of General Semantics web site. http://www.general-
semantics.org/
(I wrote this commentary in E-Prime. I rule!)
