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The Tyranny of Words
The pioneering and still essential text on semantics, urging readers to improve human communication and understanding with precise, concrete language.
In 1938, Stuart Chase revolutionized the study of semantics with his classic text, The Tyranny of Words. Decades later, this eminently useful analysis of the way we use words continues to resonate. A contemporary of the economist Thorstein Veblen and the author Upton Sinclair, Chase was a social theorist and writer who despised the imprecision of contemporary communication. Wide-ranging and erudite, this iconic volume was one of the first to condemn the overuse of abstract words and to exhort language users to employ words that make their ideas accurate, complete, and readily understood.
“[A] thoroughly scholarly study of the science of the meaning of words.” —Kirkus Reviews
“When thinking about words, I think about Stuart Chase’s The Tyranny of Words. It is one of those books that never lose its message.” —CounterPunch
In 1938, Stuart Chase revolutionized the study of semantics with his classic text, The Tyranny of Words. Decades later, this eminently useful analysis of the way we use words continues to resonate. A contemporary of the economist Thorstein Veblen and the author Upton Sinclair, Chase was a social theorist and writer who despised the imprecision of contemporary communication. Wide-ranging and erudite, this iconic volume was one of the first to condemn the overuse of abstract words and to exhort language users to employ words that make their ideas accurate, complete, and readily understood.
“[A] thoroughly scholarly study of the science of the meaning of words.” —Kirkus Reviews
“When thinking about words, I think about Stuart Chase’s The Tyranny of Words. It is one of those books that never lose its message.” —CounterPunch
420 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
173 people are currently reading
1772 people want to read
About the author
Stuart Chase
133 books39 followersStuart Chase was an American economist and engineer trained at MIT. His writings covered topics as diverse as general semantics and physical economy. His hybrid background of engineering and economics places him in the same philosophical camp as R. Buckminster Fuller. Chase's thought was shaped by Henry George, Thorstein Veblen and Fabian socialism. Chase spent his early political career supporting "a wide range of reform causes: the single tax, women's suffrage, birth control and socialism." Chase's early books The Tragedy of Waste (1925) and Your Money's Worth (1928) were notable for their criticism of corporate advertising and their advocacy of consumer protection. Although not a Marxist, Chase admired the planned economy of the Soviet Union, being impressed with it after a 1927 visit. Chase stated that "The Russians, in a time of peace, have answered the question of what an economic system is for." It has been suggested that he was the originator of the expression a New Deal, which became identified with the economic programs of American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had a cover story in The New Republic entitled "A New Deal for America", during the week that Roosevelt gave his 1932 presidential acceptance speech promising a new deal, but whether Roosevelt's speechwriter Samuel Rosenman saw the magazine is not clear.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
July 30, 2011
Highly Recommend! This is my introduction to the concept of Semantics. To date it's the most informative book I've come across on language and spoken communication. As a writer and speaker this book sets a foundation for communicating new information to another person or group. How to take in information and understand nonsense from utility. It clears the smoke of spellbinders and mystics, philosophers and economists where words hang in the abstract, with different meanings & interpretations to each person, and thus no referent to the natural world. And here communication fails us because the more abstract our speech, the less we understand what one really means.
An example of precise communication could be an airplane blueprint. Hand it to a set of engineers from one country to another, and the same plane will result. But try expressing something like "The Eternal" between nations, class and religion and now you can catch a glimps of why the worlds struggles in a quagmire of misunderstanding and failed communication.
An example of precise communication could be an airplane blueprint. Hand it to a set of engineers from one country to another, and the same plane will result. But try expressing something like "The Eternal" between nations, class and religion and now you can catch a glimps of why the worlds struggles in a quagmire of misunderstanding and failed communication.
August 24, 2010
Stuart Chase's "Tyranny of Words" is one of the easier introductions to the applied philosophy of language. The book makes four major points that I'd like to mention here:
1) It introduces the reader to Korzybski's idea of general-semantics as first discussed in his "Science and Sanity". Korzybski major realization was that words always need to refer to something in existence: the map is not the territory. From this theoretical approach to the philosophy of language, Korzybski develops practical ideas and tips to aid the individual in attaining a greater clarity in communication. He advocates a cautious and conscious use of higher-level abstractions as well as leaving out the word "is" as identity relation whenever possible - he says that no two things are ever the same. He also developed the model of a structural differential used in therapy and to teach children about the loss of information on different levels of abstraction. His last main idea is the usage of Mathematics as an aid in communication.
2) This leads over to the next point, which is actually an application of Einstein's theory of relativity to the philosophy of language: Chase says that words can never have an absolute meaning - simply because the referents aren't absolute: Take the idea of length. What is length? How can you define it? It is utterly useless to speak of length when it is not defined in relation to other concepts such as velocity. Mathematics can help in defining words and concepts because it acknowledges the relative matter of concepts by expressing them in terms of other concepts: Area = Length x Breadth.
3) The third big point made in the book is illustrated by Odgen's triangle of communication: It basically says that there is no direct connection between symbol and referent (real-world thing the symbol or word refers to). The connection is only there when an interpreter connects the thing with the symbol. Odgen created Basic English as a culmination of his findings - a variant of English with all the redundancy eliminated.
4) Now, it's getting complicated and controversial. The fourth big point made my Chase is that the social sciences and especially philosophy and economics are in big trouble because they ceased to deal with the referent side of the pyramid: They dealt only with symbols, leaving out referents. Chase might have a point here, but he seems to be objecting all use of higher-level abstractions in parts of his book and this is neither what Korzybski intended nor what I agree with: In philosophy, how can you make progress without talking about higher-level abstractions? To me, "liberty" has a meaning.
I do agree, though, with this matter in two exceptions: The first is popularism, which often takes the form of personifications of higher-level abstractions ("Capitalism is weakening") - here, it is obvious that people should question what they are talking about. The second is economics, where often - at least in Chase's time - solutions are produced by reasons on the basis of a set of assumptions that were seldomly subjected to rigorous scientific testing. The law of supply and demand is not a law, it is a model of human behaviour that may, but will not always align with what is happening in an economy. As a model, it is a great help and I thank the economist who developed it - but why the hell did he call it a law and not the "model of supply and demand"?
Having dealt with the content of this book, I want to proceed to deal with the critique of Korzybski as mentioned in the famous "Fads and Fallacies of Science". The critique shows quite obviously that Korzybski was more of a cult leader than a big philosopher - if the statements are true, that is.
1) It introduces the reader to Korzybski's idea of general-semantics as first discussed in his "Science and Sanity". Korzybski major realization was that words always need to refer to something in existence: the map is not the territory. From this theoretical approach to the philosophy of language, Korzybski develops practical ideas and tips to aid the individual in attaining a greater clarity in communication. He advocates a cautious and conscious use of higher-level abstractions as well as leaving out the word "is" as identity relation whenever possible - he says that no two things are ever the same. He also developed the model of a structural differential used in therapy and to teach children about the loss of information on different levels of abstraction. His last main idea is the usage of Mathematics as an aid in communication.
2) This leads over to the next point, which is actually an application of Einstein's theory of relativity to the philosophy of language: Chase says that words can never have an absolute meaning - simply because the referents aren't absolute: Take the idea of length. What is length? How can you define it? It is utterly useless to speak of length when it is not defined in relation to other concepts such as velocity. Mathematics can help in defining words and concepts because it acknowledges the relative matter of concepts by expressing them in terms of other concepts: Area = Length x Breadth.
3) The third big point made in the book is illustrated by Odgen's triangle of communication: It basically says that there is no direct connection between symbol and referent (real-world thing the symbol or word refers to). The connection is only there when an interpreter connects the thing with the symbol. Odgen created Basic English as a culmination of his findings - a variant of English with all the redundancy eliminated.
4) Now, it's getting complicated and controversial. The fourth big point made my Chase is that the social sciences and especially philosophy and economics are in big trouble because they ceased to deal with the referent side of the pyramid: They dealt only with symbols, leaving out referents. Chase might have a point here, but he seems to be objecting all use of higher-level abstractions in parts of his book and this is neither what Korzybski intended nor what I agree with: In philosophy, how can you make progress without talking about higher-level abstractions? To me, "liberty" has a meaning.
I do agree, though, with this matter in two exceptions: The first is popularism, which often takes the form of personifications of higher-level abstractions ("Capitalism is weakening") - here, it is obvious that people should question what they are talking about. The second is economics, where often - at least in Chase's time - solutions are produced by reasons on the basis of a set of assumptions that were seldomly subjected to rigorous scientific testing. The law of supply and demand is not a law, it is a model of human behaviour that may, but will not always align with what is happening in an economy. As a model, it is a great help and I thank the economist who developed it - but why the hell did he call it a law and not the "model of supply and demand"?
Having dealt with the content of this book, I want to proceed to deal with the critique of Korzybski as mentioned in the famous "Fads and Fallacies of Science". The critique shows quite obviously that Korzybski was more of a cult leader than a big philosopher - if the statements are true, that is.
April 8, 2021
one of the classics
Chase - The Tyranny of Words
Hayakawa - Language in Action
Wilson - Language and the Pursuit of Truth
January 13, 2015
This is a hard book to review because it requires contextualization. Here goes:
Stuart Chase was an economist who got interested in words when semantics was developing as a branch of linguistics. This book is his synthesis of his reading in this area over a 3-year period in the mid-1930's. It is clearly not written by a linguist and it has some terrible logical errors (including a bunch of syllogisms that would bring a logician to tears). However, the area it tackles is terribly hard: how do we communicate meaning accurately, particularly as the level of abstraction of our ideas increases? As such, it illustrates the struggles of a young field to define itself, explain its subject matter, develop its methodology, and contribute to human communication. I read it as a warm-up to Ogden and Richard's "The Meaning of Meaning"; more to come on how well it prepared me for their work. It introduces their referent-reference-symbol model to explain how easily we miscommunicate: many of the word-symbols we use do not have clearly specified referents (identifiable real-world objects), so speakers and listeners reference different concepts and therefore misunderstand each other. The overall point is that we must situate - or qualify - our statements in space-time. For example, "democracy in the United States in 1938", or "democracy in the UK in 1956." While useful for describing how to mediate disputes, it is entirely unable to handle, for example, many of the beautiful things about meaning and interpretation as explained by modern poetry theory.
Stuart Chase was an economist who got interested in words when semantics was developing as a branch of linguistics. This book is his synthesis of his reading in this area over a 3-year period in the mid-1930's. It is clearly not written by a linguist and it has some terrible logical errors (including a bunch of syllogisms that would bring a logician to tears). However, the area it tackles is terribly hard: how do we communicate meaning accurately, particularly as the level of abstraction of our ideas increases? As such, it illustrates the struggles of a young field to define itself, explain its subject matter, develop its methodology, and contribute to human communication. I read it as a warm-up to Ogden and Richard's "The Meaning of Meaning"; more to come on how well it prepared me for their work. It introduces their referent-reference-symbol model to explain how easily we miscommunicate: many of the word-symbols we use do not have clearly specified referents (identifiable real-world objects), so speakers and listeners reference different concepts and therefore misunderstand each other. The overall point is that we must situate - or qualify - our statements in space-time. For example, "democracy in the United States in 1938", or "democracy in the UK in 1956." While useful for describing how to mediate disputes, it is entirely unable to handle, for example, many of the beautiful things about meaning and interpretation as explained by modern poetry theory.
November 7, 2008
The Tyranny of Words
The book was first published in 1938 (my copy was published in London at that time, strangely enough) and I don't know how to edit the Goodreads text that says it was published much later. Also good quality paperbacks (with better covers) and hardbacks are still available on Amazon.
The author, ironically, is a little more wordy for my taste than I would like but not nearly enough to “bounce” me from the book. The ideas are practical and useful. This is an “early” work as it was written only a few years after Korzybski, and it includes an overview of other works that have not survived the test of time that Korzybski’s work has. As with Hayakawa’s book, in addition to the ideas themselves, the historical context gives the book a richness that I have really enjoyed. The economic and social issues of that day often remain the issues of this day ( Fall 2008)
Often while reading I ask myself “ Why are you writing like this?” . And, I think I have a plausible answer. If he was 38 or older when he wrote this, he was born before cars and a 24 hour radio station. When the sun went down, his world may have been the exchange of ideas with people actually sitting in the room with him. His chattiness may come from the amount of time he, and others had throughout each evening.
There are plenty of gems thoughout the book that kept me interested. I wish he would reference his name dropping as well as the books, quotes and other attributed ideas that he presents throughout.
Half way through the book now I have moved it from two to three stars. He can write when he wants to. I have finished the book now and I'll give it three and a half to four stars.
Getting toward the end of the book now and he spends a lot of time on economics re: Marxist and Capitalist “word traps”. He is helping me rethink my own economic models.
I’ll remember his translations of political and economic text into bla bla for making me laugh out loud.
The book was first published in 1938 (my copy was published in London at that time, strangely enough) and I don't know how to edit the Goodreads text that says it was published much later. Also good quality paperbacks (with better covers) and hardbacks are still available on Amazon.
The author, ironically, is a little more wordy for my taste than I would like but not nearly enough to “bounce” me from the book. The ideas are practical and useful. This is an “early” work as it was written only a few years after Korzybski, and it includes an overview of other works that have not survived the test of time that Korzybski’s work has. As with Hayakawa’s book, in addition to the ideas themselves, the historical context gives the book a richness that I have really enjoyed. The economic and social issues of that day often remain the issues of this day ( Fall 2008)
Often while reading I ask myself “ Why are you writing like this?” . And, I think I have a plausible answer. If he was 38 or older when he wrote this, he was born before cars and a 24 hour radio station. When the sun went down, his world may have been the exchange of ideas with people actually sitting in the room with him. His chattiness may come from the amount of time he, and others had throughout each evening.
There are plenty of gems thoughout the book that kept me interested. I wish he would reference his name dropping as well as the books, quotes and other attributed ideas that he presents throughout.
Half way through the book now I have moved it from two to three stars. He can write when he wants to. I have finished the book now and I'll give it three and a half to four stars.
Getting toward the end of the book now and he spends a lot of time on economics re: Marxist and Capitalist “word traps”. He is helping me rethink my own economic models.
I’ll remember his translations of political and economic text into bla bla for making me laugh out loud.
September 13, 2020
The academe discipline that we now call communication has its roots in called
“ rhetoric,” what philosophers a few thousand years ago. With this book in 1938, Chase began a major change in the academic discipline. Now it’s called “communication” and deals with means of communicating that the Greeks (or Chase) could imagine.
But it’s good to learn about the people who developed an academic field that many students are seeking.
The book begins with a series of questions, including “Does communication threaten the world?” (p. 10) Today we would say YES.
The book is one that that brought to the educational world a topic called “communication.” While few communication textbooks mention Chase and his colleagues, their work is useful.
For example, “The meaning of an event is not something fixed and eternal, but shifts with the context or the operation which is being performed upon it.” (35)
The core of the book is to show that the WORD is not the THING it represents. Chase uses multifold examples. He wanted us to see that communication is something that only humans can experience: “Does a horse know when he crosses the border from France into Germany?” (35)
He uses a whole chapter to show that “primitive people” can communicate, even when they do not have a written language.
He shows one of his most famous pieces of work, the communication triangle:
Reference Thought or Reference
Word, Phrase, Symbol……..Object, Thing, or Referent
as a model of how communication operates. The symbols stand for a referent.
We get a sense of how who language [communication] is linked to science, math, and the environment (the same meaning as we have today for that last word.
He has chapters for diverse academic field. There’s a chapter on “….the semantics of sex.” (202) [You might be a little disappointed about that part of the book.]
He also devotes chapters with clever titles: Promenade with Philosophers, Turn with the Logicians.” And “Right with Economists.”
“The student of semantics will tend to reverse the usual relations between speaker and listener.” (199) This was a major movie in the study of public speaking.
There’s no surprise that a book published in 1938 addresses fascism.
There’s a page on “the semantics of sex.” [Don’t go to page 202 right away, however,]
He gets to the differences in labels and words for man and woman (203)
The book ends with chapters focused on logicians, economists (both left and right), judges and statement [and probably if he were writing today would say “women in the work of states.”)
A final statement: “Language is perhaps the most human of all human attributes.” 352
“ rhetoric,” what philosophers a few thousand years ago. With this book in 1938, Chase began a major change in the academic discipline. Now it’s called “communication” and deals with means of communicating that the Greeks (or Chase) could imagine.
But it’s good to learn about the people who developed an academic field that many students are seeking.
The book begins with a series of questions, including “Does communication threaten the world?” (p. 10) Today we would say YES.
The book is one that that brought to the educational world a topic called “communication.” While few communication textbooks mention Chase and his colleagues, their work is useful.
For example, “The meaning of an event is not something fixed and eternal, but shifts with the context or the operation which is being performed upon it.” (35)
The core of the book is to show that the WORD is not the THING it represents. Chase uses multifold examples. He wanted us to see that communication is something that only humans can experience: “Does a horse know when he crosses the border from France into Germany?” (35)
He uses a whole chapter to show that “primitive people” can communicate, even when they do not have a written language.
He shows one of his most famous pieces of work, the communication triangle:
Reference Thought or Reference
Word, Phrase, Symbol……..Object, Thing, or Referent
as a model of how communication operates. The symbols stand for a referent.
We get a sense of how who language [communication] is linked to science, math, and the environment (the same meaning as we have today for that last word.
He has chapters for diverse academic field. There’s a chapter on “….the semantics of sex.” (202) [You might be a little disappointed about that part of the book.]
He also devotes chapters with clever titles: Promenade with Philosophers, Turn with the Logicians.” And “Right with Economists.”
“The student of semantics will tend to reverse the usual relations between speaker and listener.” (199) This was a major movie in the study of public speaking.
There’s no surprise that a book published in 1938 addresses fascism.
There’s a page on “the semantics of sex.” [Don’t go to page 202 right away, however,]
He gets to the differences in labels and words for man and woman (203)
The book ends with chapters focused on logicians, economists (both left and right), judges and statement [and probably if he were writing today would say “women in the work of states.”)
A final statement: “Language is perhaps the most human of all human attributes.” 352
Read
March 31, 2025i was expecting this to be about semantics but it is mostly an exploration of 1930s american politics. still a pretty good read and it places lots of emphasis on clear communication and avoiding getting swept up in high order abstractions
October 31, 2020
The key idea is pretty interesting, i.e., outside of physical sciences, nobody knows what they are talking about and it's all time wasted. Especially in economics and politics.
August 30, 2020
Mr. Chase was an economist and a reformer during the New Deal era with FDR. This book was published in 1938 as 'fascism' of different varieties was rising in Italy and Germany when the United States had not entered the conflict. Chase draws on prominent figures of the era to analyze the use of language in communication, and proposes that if we were to agree on the meaning of the words we use we could improve communications and eliminate conflict in the public sphere.
I particularly enjoyed reading his elegant prose. He is an intellectual, but his examples are very down to earth. The present political context illuminates his argument, the degree to which political speech is disconnected from reality. I am in disagreement with Mr. Chase as much as our politicians practice the art of dissembling, rather than trying to communicate clearly.
In the later chapters, Chase briefly discusses the WPA and welfare programs and their opposition in congress during the depression. I found it worth reading, and an education on the era of the great depression leading up to WWII.
I particularly enjoyed reading his elegant prose. He is an intellectual, but his examples are very down to earth. The present political context illuminates his argument, the degree to which political speech is disconnected from reality. I am in disagreement with Mr. Chase as much as our politicians practice the art of dissembling, rather than trying to communicate clearly.
In the later chapters, Chase briefly discusses the WPA and welfare programs and their opposition in congress during the depression. I found it worth reading, and an education on the era of the great depression leading up to WWII.
July 18, 2013
Amazing book on the prospects of the clarification of language. I enjoyed the special focus on economic and political matters. As the book was written between the two world wars, you would think it might read like a dated book, but it actually was quite refreshing. One can see echoes from the past in today's economic and political problems, which Chase masterfully shows stem partly from problems with communication and using dogmatic absolutes. Every person considering himself or herself on the "left" or the "right" politically (especially on the fringes, and I've been on both sides) should read this, as it's a good warning as to the disastrous results of using a single- or two-valued approach to thinking and communicating instead of a many-valued or infinite-valued approach. You will probably understand what I mean after reading the book. Great read. Even though the book is 75 years old (1938-2013), it is still enjoyable, readable, and, maybe unfortunately, relevant to today's world.
July 15, 2011
I am currently on chapter 6, this book is a bit difficult to read since some of the words are not on my daily vocab; so I have to take the time I come across each new word to me and write it down the look up the definition. To my understanding so far the author's take on semantics is of words being used excessively on intangible things. I have been taking notes as I progress through the chapters and have a list of a few other experts in the field of Semantics and neurology to follow up on once completed; three of these being C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards, and Alfred Korzybski (which seems to be referenced often in this book). I think it's pretty interesting how Chase Stuart mentions the three sources new symbols emerge from to become words. I'll have to look up more info on word magic and Semantics once completed with this book; great read so far.
Read
September 13, 2009This book introduced me to Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics (GS). One of the most important precepts of GS is that any abstract word without a clear referent in the physical world is deemed essentially meaningless. Guided by this and other principles of the discipline, Stuart Chase gives and critiques examples of misleading or meaningless language in economics, politics, literary theory, science and law. I found this book to be an easy-to-understand (and well-written) investigation of the limits of spoken and written communication. After having read it, I'm convinced GS can help me clarify not only my writing and speech, but also my thought. I'm eager to learn more about it.
February 15, 2025
Each time I read a philosophical treatise, I become exasperated, because I see attempts at presenting precise arguments, not in a precise language designed for the purpose, but in an inherently ambiguous natural language. I felt validated by Stuart Chase’s book upon hitting this passage: "Another matter which distressed me was that I found it almost impossible to read philosophy. The great words went round and round in my head until I became dizzy. Sometimes they made pleasant music, but I could rarely effect passage between them and the real world of experience." Now, if language can lead us astray in the haughty field of philosophy, you can imagine the dangers of miscommunication in daily human interactions, political discourse, and other domains.
Chase’s main message to the reader is that we should all use transparent, concrete, precise language to improve human communication. Chase was a social theorist and writer who despised imprecision in our linguistic interactions, thereby condemning the overuse of abstract words and urging the use of words that make their ideas accurate, complete, and readily understood. In support of his main point, Chase makes four observations about the dangers hidden in words and languages:
- Languages are fundamentally ambiguous
- We often confuse symbols with reality
- Language is a tool for control
- Interpreting words requires critical thinking
Regarding ambiguity, Chase warns us that words such as ‘freedom,’ ‘justice,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘reform’ have no precise meanings. Words that refer to concrete objects, such as ‘dog’ or ‘chair,’ are the least problematic. Intermediate between concrete and abstract words are those that refer to clusters of objects, such as ‘consumers’ or ‘the white race.’ On the importance of critical thinking, he urges us to assess whether words are used to reveal the truth or to hide it. Chase posits that we need a science of human communication, built on the same principles as those of other sciences (experimentation & validation) and tasked with creating better linguistic tools.
Chase also offers a few practical suggestions:
- Connect words to physical reality and/or measurable concepts
- Focus on what words represent. Too much reliance on abstract notions such as love and freedom is harmful
- Ask questions, especially when words appear to cause excitement or stir emotions
- Familiarize yourself with logic and critical thinking to avoid linguistic traps
In a wonderful appendix, Chase provides examples of obscure texts and invites the reader to try to make sense of them by identifying abstractions and referents, if any, and deducing whether the speaker knows what he is talking about. I used this method of teaching by bad examples when I taught technical writing many years ago. In the following, I provide snippets of some of the 22 examples cited by Chase.
Exhibit 2, by Henry Ford: Monopoly, we now know, is impossible, for the reason that a monopoly based on anything but service is self-destructive.
Exhibit 3, by Adam Smith: Labor, therefore, it appears evidently, is the only universal as well as the only accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times, and at all places.
Exhibit 5, by E. Colman: Without an understanding of regularity from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, physics and biology cannot steer a way through the Scylla of mechanistic fatalism and the Charybdis of indeterminism.
Exhibit 7, by Bernhard Rust: Those democrats who come here and shake their heads because we march so much need to be told something: They will reap from their democratic idea of liberty the destruction of their liberty.
Exhibit 12, by Waldo Frank: America … is a multiverse craving to become One … Each of Hart Crane’s lyrics is a diapason between the two integers of a continuous whole.
Exhibit 14, by Will Durant: This then is the final triumph of thought—that it disintegrates all societies, and at last destroys the thinker himself. Perhaps the invention of thought was one of the cardinal errors of mankind.
Exhibit 19, by Robert Maynard Hutchins: Education implies teaching. Teaching implies knowledge. Knowledge is truth. The truth is everywhere the same. Hence education should be everywhere the same.
The book is structured into a large number of chapters with the following titles.
- A writer in search of his words
- A look around the modern world
- Inside and outside
- Cats and babies
- Primitive peoples
- Pioneers—I
- Pioneers—II
- Meaning for scientists
- The language of mathematics
- Interpreting the environments
- The semantic discipline
- Promenade with the philosophers
- Turn with the logicians
- To the right with the economists
- To the left with the economists
- Swing your partners with the economists
- Round and round with the judges
- Stroll with the statesmen
- On facing the world outside
- Appendix: Horrible examples
Chase’s main message to the reader is that we should all use transparent, concrete, precise language to improve human communication. Chase was a social theorist and writer who despised imprecision in our linguistic interactions, thereby condemning the overuse of abstract words and urging the use of words that make their ideas accurate, complete, and readily understood. In support of his main point, Chase makes four observations about the dangers hidden in words and languages:
- Languages are fundamentally ambiguous
- We often confuse symbols with reality
- Language is a tool for control
- Interpreting words requires critical thinking
Regarding ambiguity, Chase warns us that words such as ‘freedom,’ ‘justice,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘reform’ have no precise meanings. Words that refer to concrete objects, such as ‘dog’ or ‘chair,’ are the least problematic. Intermediate between concrete and abstract words are those that refer to clusters of objects, such as ‘consumers’ or ‘the white race.’ On the importance of critical thinking, he urges us to assess whether words are used to reveal the truth or to hide it. Chase posits that we need a science of human communication, built on the same principles as those of other sciences (experimentation & validation) and tasked with creating better linguistic tools.
Chase also offers a few practical suggestions:
- Connect words to physical reality and/or measurable concepts
- Focus on what words represent. Too much reliance on abstract notions such as love and freedom is harmful
- Ask questions, especially when words appear to cause excitement or stir emotions
- Familiarize yourself with logic and critical thinking to avoid linguistic traps
In a wonderful appendix, Chase provides examples of obscure texts and invites the reader to try to make sense of them by identifying abstractions and referents, if any, and deducing whether the speaker knows what he is talking about. I used this method of teaching by bad examples when I taught technical writing many years ago. In the following, I provide snippets of some of the 22 examples cited by Chase.
Exhibit 2, by Henry Ford: Monopoly, we now know, is impossible, for the reason that a monopoly based on anything but service is self-destructive.
Exhibit 3, by Adam Smith: Labor, therefore, it appears evidently, is the only universal as well as the only accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times, and at all places.
Exhibit 5, by E. Colman: Without an understanding of regularity from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, physics and biology cannot steer a way through the Scylla of mechanistic fatalism and the Charybdis of indeterminism.
Exhibit 7, by Bernhard Rust: Those democrats who come here and shake their heads because we march so much need to be told something: They will reap from their democratic idea of liberty the destruction of their liberty.
Exhibit 12, by Waldo Frank: America … is a multiverse craving to become One … Each of Hart Crane’s lyrics is a diapason between the two integers of a continuous whole.
Exhibit 14, by Will Durant: This then is the final triumph of thought—that it disintegrates all societies, and at last destroys the thinker himself. Perhaps the invention of thought was one of the cardinal errors of mankind.
Exhibit 19, by Robert Maynard Hutchins: Education implies teaching. Teaching implies knowledge. Knowledge is truth. The truth is everywhere the same. Hence education should be everywhere the same.
The book is structured into a large number of chapters with the following titles.
- A writer in search of his words
- A look around the modern world
- Inside and outside
- Cats and babies
- Primitive peoples
- Pioneers—I
- Pioneers—II
- Meaning for scientists
- The language of mathematics
- Interpreting the environments
- The semantic discipline
- Promenade with the philosophers
- Turn with the logicians
- To the right with the economists
- To the left with the economists
- Swing your partners with the economists
- Round and round with the judges
- Stroll with the statesmen
- On facing the world outside
- Appendix: Horrible examples
February 23, 2018
This was not an easy read as I expected it to be. I thought it would be a lot about psychology but its about Reality, about the real world that we live in. The words that we use and the world that we have created in our minds of words and loads of them has little to do with reality. A lot of things that we talk about are in abstraction and much of it has no referents in the real world. The author mocks the intellectuals that can talk endlessly on Law, Liberty, Equality, Capitalism and the like. For these terms are so abstract that everyone has a different meaning for them. Words themselves have no meaning, no power. It is the context in which the words are being used give them meaning. There is no such thing as absolute truth. Truth is always relative. Truth is never ultimate, it is always becoming. Rigid and unalterable laws cannot run a lively world because the world is always changing and so should be the rules of it. The author says that we can improve the quality of life on earth by practicing scientific thinking as best as we can which means to Observe, to Experiment and to Infer and not to be rigid in our conclusions as what seems true today can be proved false tomorrow. We need to discard bad language using which we talk about ideas that have no referents in the real world. They are simply phantoms of our mind. We need to ask ourselves - what are we talking about ? what is it refering to in the real world ? What is the proof it is real ? By thinking and talking realistically we can have a good communication with our people which alone can save the world. This is the essence of the whole book. A very intellectual and thought provoking book. A must read.
August 11, 2019
Fun to read on an unintended level as an artifact or time-capsule for the context of being written 8 decades ago (1938) prior to US involvement in WWII US. It took me a bit to realize the author wasn't just making a reference to Hitler (or whatever my first clues were) as a historic figure. The author provides many examples of arguments over economic systems (and other things) that haven't changed in all of these decades. He shared a funny experiment of asking a number of different people their definition of the word Fascism (which is apropos to today).
Tons of typos. Kind of strange if it is considered a classic that after 8 decades so many typos haven't been fixed.
I am not sure where this book was recommended, but it was recommended as a classic of semantics. I'm not a big fan of reading classics if there have probably been decades of improvements on the thoughts. It's a casual style: more like a smart person at a dinner party lamenting the abuse of language.
Tons of typos. Kind of strange if it is considered a classic that after 8 decades so many typos haven't been fixed.
I am not sure where this book was recommended, but it was recommended as a classic of semantics. I'm not a big fan of reading classics if there have probably been decades of improvements on the thoughts. It's a casual style: more like a smart person at a dinner party lamenting the abuse of language.
October 17, 2021
I read this book 40 years ago and still think of it as one of the most important reads of my youth. The crux: Many of the words we use in everyday conversation represent such a high level of abstraction that we cannot possibly expect anyone else to know what we have in mind when we use them. And... we may not even know ourselves. Chase's book takes this problem head-on.
Today there are many similar books which approach the topic from a more sophisticated point of view. However, few have quite the innocent accessibility of Chase's. Read it. The memory of "The Tyranny of Words" can be a bit like the child in the "Emperor's New Clothes" whispering in your ear whenever a pundit or politician takes the podium.
Today there are many similar books which approach the topic from a more sophisticated point of view. However, few have quite the innocent accessibility of Chase's. Read it. The memory of "The Tyranny of Words" can be a bit like the child in the "Emperor's New Clothes" whispering in your ear whenever a pundit or politician takes the podium.
December 12, 2019
Loved it, and I’m sure I will remember this as being a intellectually formative title. I’ve never given the subject of semantics much though but Stuart Chase argues stylishly and effectively the importance of its study. I’m already diving into the books in the bibliography.
After around page 250 or so, Chase stops talking about theory and applies it to practical problems. Being an economist, the following chapters involve right and left wing economics, American law, and politics of his time.
I found this to be boring most of the time, and really had to work my way through it, but, there were gems sprinkled through out these chapters that served as motivation to continue and find another.
After around page 250 or so, Chase stops talking about theory and applies it to practical problems. Being an economist, the following chapters involve right and left wing economics, American law, and politics of his time.
I found this to be boring most of the time, and really had to work my way through it, but, there were gems sprinkled through out these chapters that served as motivation to continue and find another.
September 27, 2022
Written before the second world war, the book is extremely dated and a slog to get through. I put it down after 150 pages or so, and could not bring myself to pick it up again.
Hopefully other semantics books are more readable.
Hopefully other semantics books are more readable.
December 14, 2019
Find the first couple of three star reviews for this book and they do a great job of summing up my thoughts.
February 21, 2025
This book is the opposite of Untethered Soul. I’d recommend Tyranny of Words to anyone looking to better understand how words and concepts are abstracted to coerce and manipulate.
April 27, 2022
For a book written decades ago, this is fresh and challenging. It opened my eyes to finally see many assumptions i'd made, many of which were invalid when analyzed but heretofore unquestioned because i'd assumed the language used to describe them actually said something.
September 24, 2010
This was my first exposure to Mr. Chase, it was recommended me by various sources as I delve into General Semantics. I find it likely that it will be my last Chase. This book did not chalk my cue stick. There were a few tidbits which were worthy of jotting, but the entirety of extracted material was not in sufficient proportion to its 350+ pages to warrant a positive review. In my opinion, Mr. Chase's mind is not a necessary partner in the quest for 21st century enlightenment and I do not plan to pursue a further relationship with him.
June 16, 2024
DNF - 68%
I really wanted to but realized it wasn’t worth my time in this season.
The book was fascinating. I learned a lot but also it was way over my head. I think if I knew he was an economist, I might’ve approached it differently (or probably wouldn’t have read it at all, tbh.) I’m glad I got what I did out of it, and it continued to fuel my intrigue in semantics, but his content and style didn’t make for a great starting place.
I really wanted to but realized it wasn’t worth my time in this season.
The book was fascinating. I learned a lot but also it was way over my head. I think if I knew he was an economist, I might’ve approached it differently (or probably wouldn’t have read it at all, tbh.) I’m glad I got what I did out of it, and it continued to fuel my intrigue in semantics, but his content and style didn’t make for a great starting place.
May 25, 2015
For somebody who is trying to expose the tyranny of words, the author uses too many words. On a serious note - the book makes sense. Our language is severely lacking, and most of the time talk but don't communicate. I wish we had one universal language and its okay to use abstract words but they should not be mixed with reality.
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February 11, 2016 Most of the text so far seems dedicated to illustrations of the points he's trying to make, but these illustrations are redundant and long-winded (and not necessarily based in reality). I just read a set of pages that could have gotten their message across with 1/8th of the word-count. The word-to-content ratio in this book is too skewed for me to deal with and I give up.
December 8, 2009
EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS! No questions ask, just go buy it now. You'll probably need to get if offline; I think it's out of print.
It will teach you invaluable lessons about the words we use to communicate and how they should be used.
It will teach you invaluable lessons about the words we use to communicate and how they should be used.
May 12, 2014
The last 100 pages of this book were really hard to get through. It all of a sudden became very boring to me especially when it came to economic and judicial word abstractions. I enjoyed the first 300 pages immensely, and that is why I rated it 4 stars.
August 11, 2013
The book introduces Semantics to the reader. A discipline that decontaminate a thinker's mind, and, leaves one Intellectually Humble.
June 20, 2015
A great introduction to the basic logic behind semantics, this book also gives an interesting perspective to the United States just before WWII.
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August 5, 2018DSDS
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