THE TYRANNY OF WORDS

by Stuart Chase

Hardcover, 1938

Call number

153.6

Genres

Philosophy

General Nonfiction

Nonfiction

Collections

Philology, Sold

Publication

Harcourt Brace (1938), Hardcover

Description

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… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member hermit_9

I don’t know if I love this book as much as its original owner. He carried it through Europe in WWII like a Bible. The copy I own is a replacement of the original that he lost, but it was thoroughly read and annotated when I bought it in an old book shop. The original owner’s annotations are

almost as interesting as the text.

So now to that: Chase eloquently explains the foundations of semantics. This book helped me understand how much of meaning relies on shared experience, cultural assumptions, and so on. I do love this book.

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