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The Tyranny Of Words Paperback – Illustrated, April 15, 1959

by Stuart Chase (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 156 ratings
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A popular approach to semantics in which the author discussess how to clarify the meaning of words and achieve more exact communication. Index
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  1. Print length
    420 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    April 15, 1959
  4. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1.04 x 8.5 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0156923947
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0156923941
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stuart Chase (1888–1985) was an economist and social theorist. His many influential writings include Your Money's Worth, A New Deal, and The Tyranny of Words.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvest/HBJ; First Edition (April 15, 1959)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 420 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0156923947
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0156923941
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.04 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 156 ratings

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Stuart Chase

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
156 global ratings
Excellent book
5 Stars
Excellent book
This was an interesting book about (mostly) language and economics. I enjoyed reading it very much. It’s a book that may help change your mind about a lot of things, especially how (or if) you a should continue to argue with other humans.If you’ve ever read Ludwig Wittgenstein, you’ll love this book.
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Top reviews from the United States

Meticularius
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved it. Recently I bought The Tyranny of Words ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2017
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I first read this book in 1977. I loved it. Recently I bought The Tyranny of Words (1937) as an old used copy online (and its companion subsequent volume entitled: The Power of Words (1954), and again loved both. Stuart Chase is like an old friend one wants to return to by the fireplace again and again. Everyday we are exploited by the words implanted in us as children, and as adults today by marketing people who want our money for their BMW's and imported beers. This book awakens us to our naivete about words, our vulnerability and empowerment to and by words. The well-written and keenly thought-out book is written in everyday language and helped to develop the then-infant state of semantics and bring it to the common man. It formed part of the basis for neurolinguistics (Frogs Into Princes by Bandler & Grinder and others by these two authors which inspired many other neurolinguistic books through the years). And note: while neurolinguistics is considered pseudoscience by the psychological establishment, whatever complaints it may have --rightly or wrongly-- the establishment can't criticize what scholars and historians would call: "Returning to the original documents" or as Chase says: "Returning to the referent. If I had my way it would be required reading for all 12th grade students before they graduate. Or first year of college. Required reading.
14 people found this helpful
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Anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2020
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This was an interesting book about (mostly) language and economics. I enjoyed reading it very much. It’s a book that may help change your mind about a lot of things, especially how (or if) you a should continue to argue with other humans.

If you’ve ever read Ludwig Wittgenstein, you’ll love this book.
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Anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2020
This was an interesting book about (mostly) language and economics. I enjoyed reading it very much. It’s a book that may help change your mind about a lot of things, especially how (or if) you a should continue to argue with other humans.

If you’ve ever read Ludwig Wittgenstein, you’ll love this book.
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7 people found this helpful
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The Other Guy
4.0 out of 5 stars Perspective on language...
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2009
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Language or Words (if you will) may be the most significant distinction that the human species has. It has provided man with a creative medium almost beyond compare and at the same time in our innocence we have allowed our selves to assign words an importance or value that has become destructive, misleading, perverted, etc. This book could get you on the road to recovery. Mr. Chase is not nearly as philosophical about these issues as I tend to be but it may be to his credit. I loved the book anyhow...give it a try it may change how you think and speak.
30 people found this helpful
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Convert
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2016
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aIn 1946 or 1947 when I took a Socialogy class in College, our professor required us to read this book. In this days, many people, including myself, were worried about the political leanings of Stuart Chase. So, at the time, I did not really understand how imporant this book is. During my work career I had to travel around the world into countries where English was not the language commonly used by most of the residence. I had to use interpreters to bridge the gap between my language and their language..
(By the way, my first test of wanting to have a conversation with someone who did not know English well enough to do business, was on the Navajo Reservation in Arizonia, Utah, and New Mexicao. I got help from the traders who ran the Trade centers near where they lived, translate for us). Fortunately, something of this book reminded me to be very casuses about what I said and what I thought was being said to me.
Anyhow, I could never get this book out of my mind. About 5 years ago, I bought a paperback copy of the boo and started reading it again. I read from the begining to the end of the Chaper on Mathematics and stopped. I stopped reading to reflect on my weakness in mathematics. As I read the Chapter on Mathematics, I realised that the way to learn mathematics was to recognize that it was in fact a language and it had to be taught as a language (for me, at least). Why did not my teacher in Algebra know this?
Recently, I bought the Kndle version of this book, and this time I read to from cover to cover. Each Chapter has so much to offer me in terms of understanding the problem of understanding what I read and hear.
40 people found this helpful
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Datboi
5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant Today
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2020
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Trying to understand semantics, language, and communication is a harrowing task but Chase helps shed light into everyday happenings and deconstructs them into pieces that can help the reader better understand why these topics are so important. In an era where politicians, media, etc speak in empty, non-stop symbols, sorting through the fluff is paramount.
3 people found this helpful
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Trelligan
5.0 out of 5 stars A seminal work on semantics
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2011
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. This book largely follows Korzybsky's work on General Semantics, the science of determining what we really mean when we say something. Read  Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (International Non-Aristotelian Library)  to find out what's going on.
. Or you could check out a good popularization,  Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics. Third Edition.
. Back in the 1940s, everybody was denying the very logic of this idea. In the late 1940s, it was obvious, and everybody claimed to have invented it themselves. In the 1960s and later, the basis of this field got watered down to 'just semantics' and got ignored.
.
. This book documents a writer's search for meaning and how to clearly express it.
.
. While there are a few people still working in this field, most philosophers are off building ever more elaborate castles in the air - not even realizing that the basis of much of their work is due to Korzybsky.
19 people found this helpful
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Lavern
5.0 out of 5 stars Content
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2020
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Recommended by a jack fresco I think it’s very good
3 people found this helpful
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Winston H Sibley
5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic that should be read!
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2019
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This is a book written about 1937, the subject of which is still current. It can change your thoughts with a discipline, if followed and practiced, written simply about language use and misuse by mankind.
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Michael Horner
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a necessary item in any library either for readers or authors.
Reviewed in Germany on April 5, 2024
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This book explains why most communication includes elements of misunderstanding which is natures way of making progress. Certainty is unachievable in western languages.
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Jean-Michel
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best book available about semantics and the study of meaning.
Reviewed in Canada on May 11, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book about semantics is excellent. The author did a very good work in analyzing the meaning of a lot things that concern us all as humans and you will definitely end up changed at the end of the book. This book made me understand better the world I live in and the relations with humans in general. I recommend it strongly to anyone.
One person found this helpful
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JK
5.0 out of 5 stars A very important book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Tyranny of Words. I'm new to the semantic discipline but I have learned a lot from Mr Chase. This book will teach you how to deal with words such as 'Racist' 'Love' 'Beautiful' 'Freedom' 'Equality' and other common catchphrases, and how they have no meaning unless those words have verifiable evidence both parties can agree upon. It starts to turn you into a more critical thinker. You'll start to see how people become manipulated by politicians and people who consider themselves intelligent. It's about getting people to define what they mean instead of taking short cuts which others interpret in to other meanings. So the next time you hear someone using political rhetoric you ask them to define what they mean, most people won't know what they mean.

And a quote from the book which I just think is awesome:

"People are not "dumb" because they lack mental equipment; they are dumb because they lack an adequate method for the use of that equipment. Those intellectuals whose pastime is to sit on high fences and deplore the innate stupidity of the herd are on a very shaky fence.

Often, if they but knew it, they are more confused than the man on the street, for they deal in loftier abstractions. When I hear a man say, "We never can get anywhere because the masses are so stupid," I know that I am in the presence of a mythmaker, caught on his high perch behind the bars of a verbal prison.-" pg. 28-29

Another thing I'd like to add. Half way through the book Chase starts to argue that state economic planning is progress and uses quotes from people who oppose this way of thinking as a demonstration in to meaningless words and rhetoric. I couldn't help but notice this bias in examples, he does touch upon Marx being influenced by philosophers who believed in all sorts of myths and the impact this has on Marx's credibility, but in the end praises Marx.

The first half of the book deals with a science of communication, then later you'll notice this shift in to state economic planning and his praising of 'The New Deal'(which prolonged the great depression), and if you've studied behavioral science and understand the influence money has on human behavior you'll realize the monetary and political system ,whether socialist of free enterprise, is responsible for most harmful behavior we have today.
9 people found this helpful
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algates
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on November 17, 2017
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Excellent read.
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exp
5.0 out of 5 stars Hi
Reviewed in Germany on November 8, 2013
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Thanks alot for the quick delivery, the book is really good. Its a pity that this isnt offered in regular libraries.
yours sincerly
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