ETC.: A Review of General Semantics articles from June 2002

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics archives from June 2002

In this issue.
June 22, 2002... You can't live with it, and you can't live without it. So embrace it. Use it. Use what? Use Error. "The set of mostly unconscious assumptions we have about error may well cause more cognitive blocks and missed opportunities than any other...

The Mathsemantic Monitor *. (Error).
June 22, 2002... THE MATHSEMANTIC MONITOR comes now with a topic that a great many people really don't care to talk about, namely, error. Often it seems they just cringe and close their minds. It's really a shame, because the set of mostly unconscious...

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird WALLACE STEVENS I Among twenty snowy mountains The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In...

Right reasoning: S. I. Hayakawa, Charles Sanders Peirce and the scientific method.
June 22, 2002... Shawn Taylor * IN "The Aims and Tasks of General Semantics: Implications of the Time-Binding Theory," S. I. Hayakawa (1906-1992) distinguishes between three orientations --prescientific, antiscientific, and scientific -- and what...

Abstractions.
June 22, 2002... Jessep: You want answers? Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to them. Jessep: You want answers? Kaffee: I want the truth! Jessep: You can't handle the truth!.... You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. FROM THE...

What's in a word? On etymological slurs.
June 22, 2002... Michael Moore * CAN ETYMOLOGY benefit anyone? Philologists, philosophers, and other assorted thinkers have spilt gallons of ink over the value of etymological inquiries throughout the ages. We can learn something about the attitude of the...

Adventures in the Spin Trade. (The Clone Chronicles Installment Twenty).(Short Story)
June 22, 2002... Paul Dennithorne Johnston * IN THE 23RD CENTURY, what had once been called The State was now called The Corporation, a megalithic organization that enveloped much of Earth's North America and spread far into Space. In the previous century,...

Perspectives on Fanaticism.
June 22, 2002... Twenty-five years ago, a special issue of ETC appeared. The estimable Neil Postman, the journal's editor from 1977 through 1986, devoted that issue to the theme, "The Roots of Fanaticism." He included articles ranging from "Fanaticism in...

Fanaticism: flight from fallibility. (Perspectives on Fanaticism).
June 22, 2002... H.J. Perkinson * OUR DEBT to fanaticism is great. The unity of our present culture, the depth and breadth of our civilization, we owe in great part to those fanatics who preceded us. Had neither the Greeks nor the Romans thought themselves...

Immediate man: the symbolic environment of fanaticism. (Perspectives on Fanaticism).
June 22, 2002... Christine L. Nystrom * FANATICISM is the triumph of reflex over reflection. It differs from the more primitive reflexes in that it is conditioned -- contingent on symbols rather than sensory stimuli -- but it is reflex nonetheless: an...

Membership page.
June 22, 2002... In January, members of the Australian Society for General Semantics met for a picnic with a barbecue lunch in Cooper Park, Sydney. Meeting Challenge and Change was the topic in a February Sunday meeting run by Laurie Cox. In March, Laurie...

Warm records, cold CDs. (Metaphors in Action).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... Raymond Gozzi Jr. * I REMEMBER WHEN I first heard a CD back in the early 1980s. I did not like the sound. It seemed artificial, like a really good mechanical imitation of music. But I preferred the sound of my 33 1/3 records, which somehow...

Make your paraphrasing plagiarism proof with a coat of E-Prime. (Education).
June 22, 2002... David F. Mass * I WOULD LIKE TO DEDICATE this article to the memory of my late friend and mentor, D. David Bourland, Jr. I think he would have derived tremendous satisfaction from knowing that one of his disciples had found yet another use...

William H. Pemberton (1911-2002), Alfred Fleishman (1905-2002).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... As ETC prepared to go to press, we learned of the deaths of two men who have made important contributions to the field of general semantics. Dr. William H. Pemberton, author of The Pemberton Papers, Sanity for Survival: A Semantic Approach...

Science progresses when separated things are brought together. (News & Notes).
June 22, 2002... Dr. Sanford I. Berman will explore the relationship between general semantics and the philosophy of science when he gives the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 2003. His inquiries will include pre-Aristotelian thinking, as well as the...

Do Fish Drink Water? (Books).
June 22, 2002... Bill McLain. Do Fish Drink Water? New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Bill McLain, in his capacity as the official webmaster for Xerox, receives lots of questions from the general public about all sorts of things. And many of these questions,...

2 Kill or Not to Kill. (Books).
June 22, 2002... William Dallmann. 2 Kill or Not to Kill. Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2001. In Lobos, the first of the two novellas that comprise this book, Dr. Christopher Raven, the story's protagonist, founds an organization called Menta (an effort...

New Routes to Human Services: Information and Referral. (Books).
June 22, 2002... Risha W. Levinson. New Routes to Human Services: Information and Referral. New York: Springer, 2002. The author of this well-researched and practically oriented book states, "Not knowing where to turn for information and help is a serious...

The Inner Game of Life. (Books).
June 22, 2002... Stewart W. Holmes. The Inner Game of Life. Haverford, PA: Infinity, 2001. Stewart W. Holmes is interested in relations between our symbolic language and our behavior -- specifically, within the disciplines of general semantics and Zen. In...

"The survival of the English teacher". (Retrospect).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... While nations spend unbelievable sums in splitting atoms so that they can destroy each other more quickly, we stand in the wings talking about split infinitives. While serious scientists talk about a trip to the moon within twenty-five years,...

"Insurance loss adjusting: a study in semantic orientation". (Retrospect).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... Once a man is aware of the essential non-identity of all objects and the artificiality of categories, he has acquired the fundamental attitudes for proper adjusting. The insistence upon differences, upon individual treatment, upon lack of...

"On building a language about language". (Retrospect).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... Workers in a number of fields have recognized that our thinking is seriously restricted by the character of our language. Several techniques have been suggested for freeing ourselves, as far as is possible, from these restrictions. One...

"Semantic research and the advancement of peace". (Retrospect).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... The time has come to explore the long-neglected problems of semantics in international relations with the same intensity and ingenuity that has been devoted to the study of history and of international law and economics, and of the various...

"Appplication of mathematical methods to problems in market research and advertising". (Retrospect).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... It is assumed that the problems of market research have to do with determining trends in demand for products with a view of anticipating future demand and that the problems of advertising are (1) the dissemination of information concerning...

"Metalogues". (Retrospect).(Short Story)
June 22, 2002... Why Do Frenchman? Daughter: Daddy, why do Frenchmen wave their arms about? Father: What do you mean? D: I mean when they talk. Why do they wave their arms and all that? F: Well, why do you smile? Or why do you stamp your foot...

The Maladjustment of "Adjustment". (Retrospect).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... "The world is full of people who really do not know who they are." They are under "the dominance of the unconscious to such an extent that they exist after the manner sleepwalkers..." "But by the extension of consciousness, human beings can...

The life and death of symbols. (Retrospect).(Brief Article)
June 22, 2002... Dear Hayakawa:... Do you know Tolstoy's diary -- where he says that he sits for along time trying to find out exactly what he feels about something and gets so tired of it that he wants to get up and go away and have a woman -- but he knows...