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The first I heard about E-prime was a review/concise summary in an STC
journal last year. It was an interesting idea that had less to do with
passive voice and more to do with this philosophical idea about using "to
be":
When you use forms of "to be" you're disguising the truth. If I write "Jessy
is a loner," it allows the reader to accept that as a fact, perhaps without
asking for the evidence. To write according to E-prime, I would have to say
what Jessy actually does, and allow the reader to make her own conclusions.
For example, an E-prime form would have to be written: "Jessy walks alone at
lunch." To avoid "to be," I'm giving you the evidence.
Before you say how unworkable this is, think about the core idea. How often
do you hear people being judged without evidence and everyone accepting the
judgement because it sounds like a fact? The idea was especially appealing
to me last year, because there was someone in the office espousing the
Meyer-Briggs personality tests. She kept saying things like "He's an
extrovert, and extroverts are..."
I'll try to give an exact citation on the E-prime article.
Doug Fettig
dfettig -at- nyd -dot- legent -dot- com
