Okay, so what the jabbering fuck IS "eprime", anygoddamnway?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I don't get it.

Please to explain concept to horrible old man.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think it's when you make everything you say wishy-washy so as not to include or exclude everyone.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think it's when you make everything you say wishy-washy so as not to include or exclude everyone.

So, it's like passive/aggressive behavior codified.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think it's when you make everything you say wishy-washy so as not to include or exclude everyone.

So, it's like passive/aggressive behavior codified.

Yeah, pretty much.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think it's when you make everything you say wishy-washy so as not to include or exclude everyone.

So, it's like passive/aggressive behavior codified.

Yeah, pretty much.

Then why not just call it "talk like a city councilman"?  I mean, who the fuck uses this shit?  Is this one of those corporate fad spagfests?

[Cainad (dec.)]

E-Prime (short for English-Prime) is a modified form of the English language, users of which avoid any forms of the verb to be: "be", "is", "am", "are", "was", "were", "been" and "being" (and their contractions 'm, 's, and 're). Sentences composed in E-Prime seldom contain the passive voice, which in turn may impel writers or speakers to envisage things differently than they might otherwise (compare the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). By eliminating most uses of the passive voice, E-Prime encourages writers and speakers to make explicit the agent of a statement,[1] possibly making the written text easier to read and understand.

Some people use E-Prime as a mental discipline to filter speech and translate the speech of others.[2] For example, the sentence "the movie was good", translated into E-Prime, could become "I liked the movie". The translation communicates subjective experience rather than judgment. In this example, using E-Prime makes it harder for the writer or reader to confuse a statement of opinion with a statement of fact.

Non-lazy answer: some people decided that modern vernacular English is pretty fucked and the so are the people using it. They decided to deal with this by inventing a variant on English that removes all forms of the verb "to be", which tends to have the effect of making everything the speaker says come out as a statement of subjective opinion or experience, rather than as an objective statement.

I like to imagine that the original plan was that, since E-Prime is so tedious and annoying, we'd all learn to pay more attention to the difference between subjective and objective statements without needing a gimmick to remind us, just so we wouldn't have to speak like twats.

[Eater of Clowns]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

E-Prime (short for English-Prime) is a modified form of the English language, users of which avoid any forms of the verb to be: "be", "is", "am", "are", "was", "were", "been" and "being" (and their contractions 'm, 's, and 're). Sentences composed in E-Prime seldom contain the passive voice, which in turn may impel writers or speakers to envisage things differently than they might otherwise (compare the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). By eliminating most uses of the passive voice, E-Prime encourages writers and speakers to make explicit the agent of a statement,[1] possibly making the written text easier to read and understand.

Some people use E-Prime as a mental discipline to filter speech and translate the speech of others.[2] For example, the sentence "the movie was good", translated into E-Prime, could become "I liked the movie". The translation communicates subjective experience rather than judgment. In this example, using E-Prime makes it harder for the writer or reader to confuse a statement of opinion with a statement of fact.

Non-lazy answer: some people decided that modern vernacular English is pretty fucked and the so are the people using it. They decided to deal with this by inventing a variant on English that removes all forms of the verb "to be", which tends to have the effect of making everything the speaker says come out as a statement of subjective opinion or experience, rather than as an objective statement.

I like to imagine that the original plan was that, since E-Prime is so tedious and annoying, we'd all learn to pay more attention to the difference between subjective and objective statements without needing a gimmick to remind us, just so we wouldn't have to speak like twats.

The people who invented eprime ARE a pack of fucking pussies.  <--- objective statement.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

I don't get the "prime" part.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

I don't get the "prime" part.

It's an attempt to mask that it's fucking retarded.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

I don't get the "prime" part.

It's an attempt to mask that it's fucking retarded.

Or to demonstrate that it was invented by trekkies.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

I don't get the "prime" part.

It's an attempt to mask that it's fucking retarded.

Or to demonstrate that it was invented by trekkies.

Or, most  likely, both.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

I don't get the "prime" part.

It's an attempt to mask that it's fucking retarded.

Or to demonstrate that it was invented by trekkies.

Or, most  likely, both.

I feel an urge to write a rant in eprime.   

[Cainad (dec.)]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

I don't get the "prime" part.

It's an attempt to mask that it's fucking retarded.

Yeah, that.



Failed language experiment is failed. The only people who find it interesting are the sort of people who already get the point it's supposed to get across.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The sad thing is that even if you eprime the shit out of it people STILL don't get the difference between objective and subjective statements.

I don't get the "prime" part.

It's an attempt to mask that it's fucking retarded.

Or to demonstrate that it was invented by trekkies.

Or, most  likely, both.

I feel an urge to write a rant in eprime.   

I NEED to see this.