Language

"When it is believed that there is some mystical power in language, then we are up against problems of misevaluation. To respond to a word as if it were more than a form of representation opens us to confusion and infantile behavior. It is the fur coat that is important for warmth, not the label. It is necessary to understand the social diseases, the sexual and digestive functions and their uses and abuses, for effective living, and a secondary matter how we choose to name them. The 'magic' of the word is not an essential part of the non-verbal business of our actual direct experience of these 'things.' To respond to the word as if it were part of the unspeakable, first-order life facts is to pave the way to delusion." (p.170)

Lee, Irving J. Language Habits in Human Affairs; An Introduction to General Semantics. New York: Harper & brothers, 1941.