D-Prime

“Warriorship is a Basic Sense of Unshakeability. 

It’s a sense of Immovability and Self-Existing Dignity rather than that you are trying to fight with Something Else.”

While teaching at the University of Florida, Alfred Korzybski counselled his students to eliminate the infinitive and verb forms of "to be" from their vocabulary, whereas a second group continued to use "I am," "You are," "They are" statements as usual. 

For example, instead of saying, "I am depressed," a student was asked to eliminate that emotionally primed verb and to say something else, such as, "I feel depressed when ..." or "I tend to make myself depressed about ..."

Korzybski observed improvement "of one full letter grade" by "students who did not generalize by using that infinitive".

Albert Ellis advocated the use of E-Prime when discussing psychological distress to encourage framing these experiences as temporary (see also Solution focused brief therapy) and to encourage a sense of agency by specifying the subject of statements.

According to Ellis, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy "has favored E-Prime more than any other form of psychotherapy and I think it is still the only form of therapy that has some of its main books written in E-Prime".

However, Ellis did not always use E-Prime because he believed it interferes with readability.

Examples

Standard English

Blessed are The Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

— New American Standard Bible, Matthew 5:3

E-Prime

The Poor in Spirit receive blessings, for The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them.

The Darkest Universe

Once Upon a Time, 

 A Family of Happy Aliens 

 were flying through Space on a Long Journey.

One Day, Their Spaceships Got Sucked 

 through a Giant Hole, into 

 The Darkest Universe.

 Here, There Were No Stars

 and 

 No Light.

 So The Aliens Couldn't See,

 and 

 They Were All Very Scared.

Dawn + Arthur

Alpha + Omega

Once Upon a Time, 

A Family of Happy Aliens were flying through Space on a Long Journey.

One Day, Their Spaceships Got Sucked through a Giant Hole, into The Darkest Universe.

Here, There were No Stars

and No Light.

So The Aliens couldn't see,

and They were all very scared.

But Then,

But Then,

Their Eyes Got Used to The Dark

There Was Light 

All Along

Everything was 

Very Beautiful

I Suppose I Rather Ought to Think of Doing THIS Than My Future

“ We remained somewhat too long in Rome that spring, and what with the effect of the increasing heat and the discouraging circumstances already described, my brother resolved not to write any more, or in any case, not to proceed with “Zarathustra”, although I offered to relieve him of all trouble in connection with the proofs and the publisher. 

When, however, we returned to Switzerland towards the end of June, and he found himself once more in the familiar and exhilarating air of the mountains, all his joyous creative powers revived, and in a note to me announcing the dispatch of some manuscript, he wrote as follows: 

“I have engaged a place here for three months: forsooth, I am the greatest fool to allow my courage to be sapped from me by the climate of Italy. 

Now and again I am troubled by the thought: WHAT NEXT? 

My ‘future’ is the darkest thing in the world to me, but as there still remains a great deal for me to do, I suppose I ought rather to think of doing this than of my future, and leave the rest to THEE and the gods.”