Language habits in human affairs Book

Language Habits in Human Affairs An Introduction to General Semantics WITH A FOREWORD BY ALFRED KORZYBSKI IRVING J. LEE, PH. D. School of Speech and University College Northwestern University HARPER ROW PUBLISHERS New York, Evanston, and London LANGUAGE HABITS IN HUMAN AFFAIRS Copyright 1941, by Harper Row, Publishers, Incorporated Printed in the United States of America All rights in this hook are reserved No part of the book may be reproduced m any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews For information address Harper Row, Publishers, Incorporated 49 East 3 rc Street, New York 16, N. Y. To my Mother and Father CONTENTS FOREWORD BY ALFRED KORZYBSH ix PREFACE xiii I. LANGUAGE FOR THE LIVING 1 II. THE USEFUL USE OF WORDS 13 III. THE MANY USES OF A WORD 27 IV. ACQUAINTANCE, ABSTRACTING, NONALLNESS 53 V. A WORLD IN PROCESS 69 VI. INDEXING MAKES THE DIFFERENCES 85 VII. FACTS FIRST THEN WORDS 115 VIII. A SPELL OF WORDS 153 IX. DESCRIPTIONS AND INFERENCES 177 X. WHEN TO KEEP STILL 209 XI. THE FOUR ISES 225 XII. THE NECESSITY FOR APPLICATION 259 INDEX 273 FOREWORD Language Habits in Human Affairs by Dr. Irving J. Lee appears to be a quite unique and most needed book in these troubled years. Language problems are extremely complex, perhaps com parable with the complexities of human life itself. A great many learned treatises have been written throwing side lights on this important subject, but to my knowledge no writer has analyzed language as an essential part of human living. If we stop to reflect, we must face the fact that every human being is born into a newro-linguistic and n wro-semantic environment from which there is no escape. At present sciences are taking care of deadly environmental dangers such as plagues, epidemics, factory conditions where harmful chemicals are used which slowly kill off the workers, etc. But the academic linguists in their de tachment and interest in abstract verbiage somehow dis regard our n euro - linguistic and newro-semantic environ ments as environment, and therefore do not and, perhaps, could not produce any constructive practical results in building up sanity in education, and so ultimately in human living. It is true that these academicians and verbalists would have to know more about living human reactions. They would have to study not only neurology, psychiatry, general semantics, verbalisms written or spoken in hospitals for the mentally ill, etc., but also the pathological reac tions found in politicians, journalists, etc., and even in educators and scientists. Dr. Lee has a significant title for a chapter, Language for the Living. I am sorry he has not yet written a whole book on Language and Human Destruction in which the language habits of such sick individuals as Hitler, Goeb ix FOREWORD bels, etc., are analyzed. Today the world at large has to consider a serious situation, unparalleled in history, where a few sick individuals, through verbal distortions, falsifica tions, identifications, etc., have trained a whole generation in a pathological use of our neuro-semantic and neuro linguistic mechanisms, whereas one of the main assets of humanity is the constructive use of these mechanisms. This sick use of language affects, after all, the rest of man kind who read or even listen to gossip based on improper evaluation. The issues ahead, extremely serious in their consequences, involve ultimately the sanity of the race, which unsound newo-linguistic reactions will not solve. No matter who wins this war, we will have to talk things over, which means the use of language. The future thus depends upon our ability to discover and use the methods of sanity in speech and action. Distorted net ro-linguistic performances by present-day abnormal Fiihrers have al ready affected the linguistic habits of politicians, etc., who knew how to abuse language before, but not to such a pathological extent...