Exactly what I thought when I read the article. The proponents wanted to ban a class of semantics but instead chose to ban a relevant but totally different class of syntax.
(can't help rewriting to follow the style)
(can't help rewriting to follow the style)
If the article starts with "E-Prime prescribes..." I still don't know what E-Prime _is_. Is it a committee? Is it a style guide? (Right now the article says it's a version of English, which, if superficially, at least answers the question).
You get the idea now? The very form of the question affects your understanding of the answer. Through the description you receive, you begin to understand what E-Prime means to those that came up with it. In E-Prime, you literally can't state what it is to anyone else because that would go against E-Prime's rules.
See, "E-Prime" is a proper noun, and proper nouns don't have a meaning; they instead refer to specific things (giving them an identity). The same way Spain is a country, E-Prime is "a variant of English."