Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 19:33:18 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Old ideas revisited?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

ecf wrote:

> I believe this was addressed by S.I. Hayakawa in "Language in Thought
> and Action" back in the '60s!
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/08/19/science.counting.reut/index.html
>
> And an interesting essay on the book itself:
> http://www.greeleynet.com/~cnotess/haya.htm
>
> Am I the only olde pharte hippie that remembers reading this stuff?
>
> Stan

Interesting.  The idea that you can't think or reason about something
that you don't have vocabulary for is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
   (no, it's not Klingon :-). Since it was proposed in 1929, it's gotten
pretty thouroughly kicked around by the linguistic community; any useful
phrasing tends to be either self- evidently true or self- evidently false.

As to olde phartism, I found out that the Institute of General Semantics
<http://www.generalsemantics.org/> was real from A. E. van Vogt at one
of the worst cons ever (Rhocon 1, the first World Perry Rhodan Con).  I
still have a copy of "Science and Sanity" around here somewhere.

I was a member of the International Society for General Semantics for a
number of years (there was some kind of squabble between the IGS and the
ISGS.  They've since merged.)  I got out when I realized that a group
whose top technical journal is still publishing elementary tutorials is
not exactly cutting- edge.  A few weeks ago, I went back and looked up
the latest issue of "Etc." on the IGS website -- it's bad.

I suspect that the real problem with General Semantics is that those who
study it tend to devalop a hyperactive crap detector.  Nobody
(especially in academia) wants that.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."