Editing General semantics (section)

=== Interpretation as semantics ===
General semantics accumulated only a few early experimental validations. In 1938, economist and writer [[Stuart Chase]] praised and popularized Korzybski in ''The Tyranny of Words''. Chase called Korzybski "a pioneer" and described ''Science and Sanity'' as "formulating a genuine science of communication. The term which is coming into use to cover such studies is 'semantics,' matters having to do with signification or meaning."<ref>{{cite book |author=Chase, Stuart |title=The Tyranny of Words |year=1966 |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |location=New York |page=7}}</ref> Because Korzybski, in ''Science and Sanity'', had articulated his program using "semantic" as a standalone qualifier on hundreds of pages in constructions like "semantic factors," "semantic disturbances," and especially "semantic reactions," to label the general semantics program "semantics" amounted to only a convenient shorthand.<ref>Kodish, Bruce I. ''Korzybski: A Biography''. pp. 343, 439.</ref>

[[S. I. Hayakawa|Hayakawa]] read ''The Tyranny of Words,'' then ''Science and Sanity'', and in 1939 he attended a Korzybski-led workshop conducted at the newly organized [[Institute of General Semantics]] in Chicago. In the introduction to his own ''[[Language in Action]]'', a 1941 [[Book of the Month Club]] selection, Hayakawa wrote, "[Korzybski's] principles have in one way or another influenced almost every page of this book...."<ref>{{cite book |author=Hayakawa, S. I. |title=Language in Action |url=https://archive.org/details/languageinaction0000haya |url-access=registration |year=1941 |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |location=New York |page=viii}}</ref> But, Hayakawa followed Chase's lead in interpreting general semantics as making communication its defining concern. When Hayakawa co-founded the Society for General Semantics and its publication ''ETC: A Review of General Semantics'' in 1943—he would continue to edit ''ETC.'' until 1970—Korzybski and his followers at the Institute of General Semantics began to complain that Hayakawa had wrongly coopted general semantics.<ref>Kodish, Bruce I. ''Korzybski: A Biography, p. 554''.</ref> In 1985, Hayakawa gave this defense to an interviewer: "I wanted to treat general semantics as a subject, in the same sense that there's a scientific concept known as gravitation, which is independent of Isaac Newton. So after a while, you don't talk about Newton anymore; you talk about gravitation. You talk about semantics and not Korzybskian semantics."<ref>Shearer, Julie Gordon (1989). "From Semantics to the U.S. Senate: S. I. Hayakawa". This interview has been posted through the Online Archive of California. The cited statement by Hayakawa can be located via an internet search for Shearer + Hayakawa + "Keeping ETC. Independent of Korzybski" .</ref>