“I have found repeatedly,” wrote the novelist Robert Anton Wilson, an E-Prime advocate, “that when baffled by a problem in science, in philosophy, or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime.” Political debates might benefit, too, since E-Prime renders unyielding dogmatism – “All immigrants are scroungers!”, “Taxation is theft!” etcetera – essentially impossible. As George Santayana put it, “The little word ‘is’ has its tragedies.”

From Oliver Burkeman’s This Column Will Change Your Life in The Guardian, 16th January 2010.

Never heard of E-Prime before. And have immediately become a fan.

The basic idea is often expressed as not using the verb ‘to be’. I’ve found this to be much harder than it sounds, even in this short little excerpt. But it does make a huge difference to the way you think.

E-Prime on wikipedia is here. I wonder if this is a route to the fabled Semantic Pause?