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could find, I use as I write this will probably fall out of date by the time

you 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:

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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!)