Editing Alfred Korzybski (section)

==Early life and career==
[[File:Herb Abdank.svg|thumb|right|160px|Alfred Korzybski's family coat-of-arms (see [[Abdank coat of arms]]).]]
Born in [[Warsaw]], [[Vistula Country]], which was then part of the [[Russian Empire]], Korzybski belonged to an aristocratic Polish family whose members had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations. He learned the [[Polish language]] at home and the [[Russian language]] in schools, and having a French and German [[governess]], he became fluent in four languages as a child.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kodish |first=Bruce I. |title=Korzybski: A Biography |publisher=Extensional Publishing |location=Pasadena, CA |year=2011 |page=31 |isbn=978-0-9700664-0-4}}</ref>

Korzybski studied engineering at the [[Warsaw University of Technology]]. During the [[First World War]] (1914–1918) Korzybski served as an [[Military intelligence|intelligence officer]] in the [[Russia]]n Army. After being wounded in a leg and suffering other injuries, he moved to North America in 1916 (first to Canada, then to the United States) to coordinate the shipment of [[artillery]] to Russia. He also lectured to Polish-American audiences about the conflict, promoting the sale of [[war bonds]]. After the war he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a [[Naturalization|naturalized citizen]] in 1940. He met [[Mira Edgerly-Korzybska|Mira Edgerly]],<ref>
{{cite web
 |author= Don Shelton 
 |url= http://american-miniatures20c.blogspot.com/2007/06/edgerly-mira-portrait-of-three-sisters.html
 |title= 20C - American Miniature Portraits: Korzybska, Mira Edgerly - portrait of three sisters or a triptych?
 |website= American-miniatures20c.blogspot.com
 |date= 1954-07-13 |access-date= 2016-06-28
}}
</ref> a painter of portraits on ivory, shortly after the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|1918 Armistice]]; They married in January 1919; the marriage lasted until his death.

[[E. P. Dutton]] published Korzybski's first book, ''Manhood of Humanity'', in 1921. In this work he proposed and explained in detail a new theory of humankind: mankind as a "[[General semantics#The major premises|time-binding]]" class of life (humans perform time binding by the transmission of knowledge and [[abstraction]]s through time which become accreted in cultures).
In 1925 and 1926, Korzybski observed psychiatric patients at St. Elizabeth's hospital in D.C. under the supervision of [[William Alanson White]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Korzybski |first=Alfred |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Liup07h3fbIC&pg=PR23 |title=Collected Writings, 1920-1950 |date=1990 |publisher=Institute of GS |isbn=978-0-910780-08-7 |language=en}}</ref>