3 ms·

Interesting. What's the difference between this syntax and merely eliminating passive voice? "E-Prime, short for English-Prime, is a modified English syntax an

Interesting. What's the difference between this syntax and merely eliminating passive voice? "E-Prime, short for English-Prime, is a modified English syntax and vocabulary lacking all forms of the verb to be: be, is, am, are, was, were, been and being, and also their contractions. Sentences composed in E-Prime seldom contain the passive voice, which in turn may force the writer or speaker to think differently. By eliminating most uses of the passive voice, E-Prime compels the writer to explicitly acknowledge the agent of a sentence, possibly making the written text easier to read and understand."

nihilocrat 18y ago
"I am Sam" is active voice, and it's using the verb 'to be', because it uses 'am'. Eliminating the 'am' in this case would be pretty difficult, but another poster has reworked a line of Hamlet that uses "I am" and it's a pretty good example of using E-Prime for the sake of improving writing style. "I was assaulted" is passive voice, also using the verb 'to be'. As you may notice, the passive voice uses 'to be' very often, so eliminating 'to be' would eliminate most cases of passive voice. Languages like Russian and many others sort of do this: in present active indicative you do not use 'to be' unless you are emphasizing it, so "Sasha is a student" is literally "Sasha student". There is some linguistics term for it but it's escaping me at the moment.