general semantics

American  

noun

(used with a singular verb)

1. a philosophical approach to language, developed by Alfred Korzybski, exploring the relationship between the form of language and its use and attempting to improve the capacity to express ideas.

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general semantics British  

noun

1. (functioning as singular) a school of thought, founded by Alfred Korzybski, that stresses the arbitrary nature of language and other symbols and the problems that result from misunderstanding their nature

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Etymology

Origin of general semantics

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

O'Reilly coped by seeking out father figures: first George Simon, a practitioner of a New Age philosophy called general semantics, which stresses a kind of introspective observation.

From Inc • May 1, 2010

The father of general semantics was born in 1879�the same year, he likes to point out, as Einstein and Stalin.

From Time Magazine Archive

For a summer conference on general semantics at St. Louis, Hayakawa organized his antipathy to pop lyrics into a thesis based on what a fellow semanticist has labeled "the IFD disease."

From Time Magazine Archive

To appreciate the damage that this sort of sloppiness can do, it is useful to invoke the late Count Alfred Korzybski, inventor of general semantics.

From Time Magazine Archive

Science and sanity: an introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics.

From U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1976 January - June by Library of Congress. Copyright Office