In linguistics, E-Prime means 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 contractions. Composing in E-Prime restricts the ability to use passive voice, and can force the writer or speaker to think differently, possibly making their written text easier to read. By eliminating most uses of the passive mode, E-Prime requires the writer to explicitly acknowledge the agent of a sentence.
Some regard E-Prime as a variant of the English language, while others consider it a mental discipline to filter their own speech and translate the speech of others. For example, the sentence "the movie was good" can become "I liked the movie" using the rules of E-Prime, which communicates the subjective nature of the speaker's experience rather than directly imparting a quality to the movie. Using E-Prime makes it harder for a writer or reader to confuse statements of opinion with statements of fact.
