Robert Anton Wilson - Language, Reason & Reality

Robert Anton Wilson - Language, Reason & Reality



E-Prime, short for English-Prime, refers to a modified English syntax and vocabulary lacking all forms of the verb to be: be, is, am, are, was, were, been and being, and also their contraction

Examples of literal translation vs. translation "in the spirit" of E-Prime

In the original verse (Roses are red/Violets are blue/Honey is sweet/And so are you) the speaker expresses a belief in absolutes: "just as it is true that roses are red and violets are blue, it is true that you are as sweet as honey". But E-Prime seeks to avoid this type of thinking and writing.

Examples of literal translation vs. translation "in the spirit" of E-Prime

In the original verse (Roses are red/Violets are blue/Honey is sweet/And so are you) the speaker expresses a belief in absolutes: "just as it is true that roses are red and violets are blue, it is true that you are as sweet as honey". But E-Prime seeks to avoid this type of thinking and writing.

First example of literal translation

An E-Prime translation attempting to preserve the literal meaning of the original might read:

Roses look red;
Violets look blue.
Honey seems sweet,
And so do you.

Second example of literal translation

The following example sacrifices the metaphor implied in line 4 of the original ("You are honey-sweet") to preserve one literal meaning of line 3, namely that honey tastes sweet, and therefore replaces line 4 with simile meaning something close to the original: "honey tastes sweet, and something of your nature makes you as sweet as that."

Roses look red;
Violets look blue.
Honey tastes sweet,
As sweet as you.

(This example assumes the speaker does not mean the addressee of the poem "tastes sweet," but does mean something like "I find you sweet as honey," and attempts to preserve the meter and rhyme of the original while still avoiding any form of the verb "to be.")

An example of translation "in the spirit" of E-Prime

In an attempt to subtract the assumption of absolutes ("what is") in the original, and to illustrate thought and perspective more in the spirit of E-Prime, the following translation attempts to state meaning directly from a hypothetical speaker's personal feelings toward the addressee, and express that meaning through the filter of that speaker's perceptions of the natural world. Therefore, the translation below changes the meaning of the poem.

Roses seem red;
Violets seem blue.
I like honey,
And I like you.

That version attempted to say something close to "I perceive the natural world in the way most people do. (Few people would dispute that the most common rose-variety seems red to the human eye, or that violets can appear blue.) Therefore, when I tell you I like honey, I tell you I like a thing most would agree tastes sweet and may also perceive as a pleasing thing in other ways. Therefore by claiming to like honey and to like you, I claim to make that statement with a certainty as absolute as human perception allows."