Institute of General Semantics: 13 Common Symptoms

Language creates your reality. Know it, love it, live it. Great summary of the basics of semantics.

Institute of General Semantics: 13 Common Symptoms:

"To varying degrees, we are prone to commit these, and other, language behaviors that reflect inappropriate evaluations, i.e., our language 'maps' do not properly reflect what we 'know' about the territories of our external, and internal, 'worlds':

1. We fail to differentiate facts (verifiable, historical observations/events) from inferences, assumptions, premises, beliefs, etc.

2. We try to force two-valued, either-or, black-white, etc., distinctions on events and situations which more appropriately ought to be thought of in terms of gradations, i.e., relative to other points along a spectrum rather than absolutely one or the other.

3. We fail to account for multiple causes for any particular event, both in dimension of breadth (what other factors affected the result?) and sequence (what caused "the cause"?); we tend to simplistically focus on seeking 'the' (singular) cause.

4. We fail to recognize the uniqueness of our own experiences; we forget that almost every statement - to include descriptions, judgments, opinions, etc. - we make could be prefaced, or appended, by "to me".

5. We fall victim to the false-to-facts structural flaw of the subject/predicate grammatical form, particularly with respect to unaware use of the "is" of identity and predication; "That boy is a discipline problem." "The rose is red." The form implies a factual relationship between the subject and predicate, as though the label ("discipline problem") and color ("red") were actually properties or qualities 'in' the subjects, rather than descriptions reflecting the evaluations made by the speaker.

6. We objectify processes or high order abstractions as things, or nouns, and speak about them as though they have properties similar to 'real', non-verbal 'things'; the weather, the economy, the handling of the crisis, truth, honesty, justice, security, privacy, etc.

7. We tend to look more for similarities than we do differences; within a group (or a label for a group) we assume similarities that do not necessarily exist and fail to see the individual differences: let's get a 'woman's perspective', look at it from the 'black point of view'; all liberals are this way; all conservatives believe ….

8. We fail to account for the fact that every 'thing' - including every person - changes over time; we should not expect that Bob2002 has the same priorities, attitudes, interests, policies, fears, expectations, etc., as did Bob1982.

9. We talk in absolute, all-inclusive terms that do not reflect the facts of our limited experiences; we cannot experience 'all' or 'everything' of 'anything'. Avoid unaware and inappropriate use of absolute terms (exact same, never, always, all, none, absolutely, without exception) and remember the etc. - more can always be said.

10. We ought to acknowledge that whatever we 'know,' 'believe', or 'assume' is derived from incomplete information, therefore we ought to hold our conclusions, judgments, beliefs, and assumptions rather tentatively, subject to revision should subsequent 'facts' or events indicate.

11. We often confuse the subject noun (actor) and the object noun (recipient of the action). When we say things like, "She hurt my feelings," and "He was mean to me," we assign the 'action', or the feelings of 'hurt' and 'mean' to someone else, instead of accepting that we generated the feelings. Catch yourself when you say, "It makes me _______" – what is "it" and what does "it" do when "it" "makes"?

12. We avoid taking responsibility for our own evaluations, judgments, and opinions, when we: 1) generalize "you" when you mean "I" (How did it feel to hit the winning shot? "Well, you've got so much going on that you can't think about it, you just have to go on your instincts."); and 2) attribute to some undefined "it" ("It just shows you that it's never too late for it to teach you a lesson.").

13. Avoid perpetuating inappropriate 'magical thinking' notions such as myths, superstitions, jinxes, etc.; e.g. 13 is an unlucky number. Remember that words can influence people who can alter 'real things,' but that words alone cannot alter 'real things.' Keep in mind the principle that the cumulative effects of a simple thing can, over time, become significant. "