Speaking in E-Prime

[kill fire]

Actually most consider it okay to use "to be" in the progressive tense, one of the few exceptions.

 

[Souron]

You know I think that even in E-Prime there is a way to make one's claims sound certain all the time.

Like that sentence:
E-Prime lends itself to a manor of speaking such that one's claims sound certain all the time.

 

[Souron]

Yeah It's incredibly easy. Just do the same thing, but take out "I thing" or "I believe" and leave the rest of the sentence. Like the OP:

E-prime greatly reduces conflict and help with understanding other peoples arguments.

For example, I participated in a conversation about the first Lord of the Rings movie a while ago. One of them said "Lord of the Rings was the greatest movie ever." The other responded "Nuh-uh Lord of the Rings sucked." It resulted in a long argument and both walked away angry with each other. If they had instead said "I enjoyed the first Lord of the Rings movie" and "I didn't care for it myself" the whole conflict could have been avoided, as it stops being an argument for which statement is true, and becomes instead a simple statement of opinions.

Using E-Prime, or at least using the verb "to be" less , would benefit people in off-topic. Often people simply assert that their ideas are the truth. For example, I commonly observe people saying "so and so is morally acceptable." Then, someone with an opposing view will say "No, so and so is not morally acceptable." This causes conflict, because first of all, it seems to imply that one of them knows for a fact that their argument is true, and the other as well knows for a fact that their argument is true, when neither person can empirically prove their point. If they could, neither person would need to argue.

Secondly, E-Prime makes it difficult for people to see the other person's point of view. After all, if your argument is true, then that means the other person either cannot understand the truth (they are stupid), cannot accept the truth (they are crazy), or they know the truth but spread lies (they are evil). This makes it very difficult to understand other people's ideas, because if you present your arguments as truth, then it logically follows that the other person must be wrong or lying. If we instead present our ideas as opinions, it will be much easier to think of them as opinions.

If we speak in E-Prime, conversations might become an exchange of ideas and opinions instead being a battle over which person is "right" and which person is "wrong." Our discussions will be more productive and more civil if we just say "I disagree with so and so" or "I agree with so and so" instead of "so and so is right" or "so and so is wrong."

Well, I suppose I've rambled on long enough, just as an experiment, try to present things in E-Prime for one day and note the differences in conversation.

Similarly the LotR example:
"Lord of the Rings was the greatest movie ever." -> "The Lord of the Rings outmatches every other movie"
(And from a grammar nazi's perspective, the first sentence is wrong anyway, because works of art should be revered to in the present tense: "LotR depicts the story of Frodo", not "LotR depicted the story of Frodo".)

So really, I don't see the point of E-Prime at all.