E-Prime — General Semantics and Perceived Meaning in English

‘If objective truth does not exist, we view the world subjectively. We negotiate the truth. The most powerful negotiator wins.’ — Paul Dennithorne Johnston¹

Johnston poses a fundamental question on the subject of truth in examining it as a negotiated quantity. Who decides on what makes something true? For Johnston the most powerful negotiator wins. In our present world of information overload, our choice of language too can influence perceptions of truth — and this may appear starkly binary: either something is or it is not, reducing the possibility of alternative views, making our world appear misleadingly simple through these reductive means.

Alfred Korzybski, a Polish-born American linguist and philosopher, introduced the discipline of General Semantics to understand the problems around perceived meaning. Through his work Science and Sanity: An introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (1933) Korzybski argued that our perception of things may not translate exactly to the truth of reality. His dictum ‘the map is not the territory’ refers to how we construct a mental image (a ‘map’) of something unknown, but this image may never have perfect fidelity with the actual object (the ‘territory’). For example, one may order food online by selecting an image on a menu. However, the food when it arrives may not fit the ‘map’ we had in mind. Similarly the language used in communication may not have perfect fidelity with the complex real-world objects and ideas it tries to describe.

Arbitrary use of language can affect perspectives and influence behaviour. For example, a teacher may see a social media post stating that Chinese children are hardworking reinforcing their existing beliefs. This could influence how the teacher interacts with a child of Chinese heritage, perhaps subconsciously giving them more difficult tasks than their peers. Here the teacher has given into a psychological reaction which Korzybski called a Semantic Reaction, namely in acting upon a map that does not accurately represent the territory. A semantic reaction occurs from a deep personal conviction, built up over time through a mix of emotions, beliefs, and experiences.

D David Bourland Jr, a student of Korzybski, devised a version of English which he called E-Prime with the intention of bringing ‘the user back to the level of first-person experience.’² This basically means a language that seeks to focus on specific rather than abstract ideas, and promotes different viewpoints through open-ended sentences.

Practically he constructs E-Prime by removing all forms of the verb ‘to be’ from English. Thus ‘that man is a drunk’ becomes ‘that man appears drunk’, which more accurately reflects a first-person experience. (The man may well have suffered a stroke, for instance, something that lies beyond the observer’s awareness.) E-Prime requires selecting alternative words to replace all occurrences of ‘to be’ forms, although it chiefly seeks to modify the ‘is of identity’ and the ‘is of predication’. The former establishes the identity of a subject, such as ‘this is my cat’, whereas the latter makes an assumption such as ‘my cat is happy’. According to Bourland, sentences using the ‘is of identity’ and the ‘is of predication’ may lead to ‘overdefining of situations’ in which one aspect or point of view can obscure ‘an experience with a much more complex totality’³.

Consider the following example: Donald Trump’s presidency was not effective compared to Barack Obama’s.

This reflects a strong opinion and entails a sense of belief that may have an emotional or entrenched underpinning. The statement does not acknowledge possible complexities involving the subject, and does not allow for discussion or an opinion to the contrary.

However, translating to E-Prime by removing the ‘to be’ verb makes the statement less dogmatic: Donald Trump’s presidency demonstrated less effectiveness compared to Barack Obama’s.

Here the use of the word ‘demonstrated’ requires us to justify our assertion. The first version with the implied ‘is of predication’ relates to our presumed entitlement to power and authority over the subject. It does not allow room for interpretation or further explanation as the sentence closes itself tightly in a loop. On the other hand the E-Prime revision reduces the risk of premature judgement. Both statements, however, have different intended meanings, and the application of E-Prime in fact translates a sentence rather than directly replacing it.

E-Prime encourages the discussion of diverse experiences rather than choking different viewpoints into a singular ‘truth’. Bourland believes that E-Prime accomplishes its goal of bringing communication closer to that of the first-person experience. However, he also says that ‘E-prime does not cure or resolve all linguistic and behavioural problems’⁴ E-Prime as a technique only assists in the clarification of identity and predication, which means that users may still express authoritative opinions or hatred just as in standard English. For example, the phrase ‘the people of your race disgust me’ aligns with E-Prime but nevertheless can cause serious offence.

Although E-Prime may not fully address the imbalance of power when negotiating truth as outlined by Johnston, its practical use may influence how we understand each other, with diversity, complexity and empathy.

Bourlands provides practical tips for adopting E-Prime in one’s daily life:⁵

1 - Start writing E-Prime in ‘less critical areas’ such as letters, diaries, notes, email, or text messages before progressing to more serious works.

2 - Replace ‘to be’ verbs with ‘to have’. For example, change ‘This image is dull’ to ‘This image may not have enough colour’.

3 - Mentally translate others’ speech into E-Prime and respond appropriately.

Although E-Prime may initially feel awkward, practitioners would perhaps bring a certain flair to their writing and speech — much like the author (one hopes) who chose to write this article exclusively in E-Prime.