(core) (operational language)
(or, why you don’t get it at first)
Jason asks, “is this sentence correct ePrime?”
We probably need to stop using the ePrime reference and simply teach people the steps to transforming fuzzy intuitive language to very clear operational language.
The first step is eliminating the Copula (the connector): the verb to-be. This connector says “imply the connection” it does not state the connection. This is how ‘suggestion’ (deceit) is inserted into our otherwise very precise, english language. It’s the basis of all sophism.
The second step, which may be necessary to complete the first step requires starting sentences with the subject rather than the actor – and this is what’s probably causing your struggle.
P and ePrime ask you to think in terms of actor rather than subject. To put the actor before the subject in composing your “episode”. Thinking in, writing in, speaking in actors, adds a computational cycle, because the more advanced our thinking the more we’re thinking about subjects rather than actors. And the more ‘generalized’ our statement – which means the more masculine and analytic – the more the subject is the basis for context and the less the actor is the basis for content. So yes, operational language is slightly more burdensome, because it is more precise – at least until you habituate it.
The Example:
–“With the ability to protect it with violent defense, exercised at will, on an individual and group level, “—
Change to:
—At an individual or group level, [we / they] [can / develop the ability to] protect [it / or restate subject] with violent defense, exercised at will.”—
Phrase:
1 – actor
2 – acted upon
3 – consequence
So:
1 – Repeat with Collection of Phrases.
2- Producing a Complete sentence.
3- That explicitly states the COMPLETE transformation (Transaction)
In other worlds:
- Actor, Operation, Subject: “John threw the ball (to mark who caught it).”
and not:
- Subject, Actor, Operation: “The ball john threw (to mark who caught it.)”
Language in operational terms is an accounting system
That’s the secret of operational language “full accounting of changes in state”.
Phrase (debit) Journal Entry , Phrase (credit) Journal Entry
Sentence = Ledger Entry.
Paragraph = Income Statement
Story = Balance Sheet
If you begin to see ‘the grammars’ in everything you will finally understand why P is so powerful … and it will, at some point, horrify you with wonder at it all.
Language is a means of measurement.
Arithmetic is a very precise language
Accounting is just a very precise language.
Geometry is another precise language
Programming is another precise language
P-Law is another precise language
P-Testimony is the most precise language possible
All language functions as a system of measurement using measurements provided by the human body. and accounting of changes in state in that measurement system. Why? Because the brain does nothing other than detect and predict, changes in state.
We can either account well(operational language),
or account poorly(ordinary language),
or account deceptively (postmodern/feminist language)
I hope this helps because it is the summary of the meaning of operational prose.
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attn: Bill Joslin