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From: smith@COS.COM (Steve Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.misc
Subject: Re: General Semantics
Message-ID: <424@cos.COM>
Date: Mon, 31-Aug-87 19:13:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: cos.424
Posted: Mon Aug 31 19:13:33 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 01:51:26 EDT
References: <141@snark.UUCP> <4063@oliveb.UUCP>
Reply-To: smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith)
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 35
Xref: mnetor sci.lang:1277 sci.misc:472

In article <4063@oliveb.UUCP> trash@oliveb.UUCP (Tom Repa) writes:

>	All right, I'll bite. How about some good references for 
>me to read up on General Semantics?

For an excellent college level textbook in General Semantics, see
"Language in Thought and Action" by S. I. Hayakawa.  There are four
editions;  my own favorite is the third.  Incidentally, this is the
funniest "textbook" that I've ever run across.

The "original source" is "Science and Sanity" by Alfred Korzybski.  It
is tough going, first because Korzybski tries very hard to follow
his own prescriptions (which gets tedious) and because he uses some
rather dated examples.  We've learned just a bit about the brain since
1948...

At one time, there was a journal called "Etc." devoted to General
Semantics.  The few copies that I've seen have not been impressive.

As to General Semantics being "discredited", let's just say that a
system that purports to train people to recognize and counteract the
claims of virtually any variety of snake oil salesmen tends to attract
criticism.  As long as you confine your analyses to things like Pepsi
commercials, you're OK, but when you do a shred job on Karl Marx or
Ayn Rand (perfectly justified in both cases, by the way), you should
hear the screams!

Anyway, get ahold of the Hayakawa book.  Do the "applications" (much
more fun than excercises).  Have fun watching what the snake oil
salesmen are trying to do to you (and ignoring them).
-- 
                           __
 -- Steve          /      /  \      /         "Truth is stranger than
S. G. Smith      I \ O    |  _    O \ I        fiction because fiction
smith@cos.com      /      \__/      /          has to make sense."