Talk:Benjamin Lee Whorf

comments
Recently the following sentences were removed from the article:
 * Of him, George Lakoff, a well known American linguist, has said:
 * Whorf was not only an outstanding linguist... he was an outstanding human being

Motivation for the deletion was that 'opinions on outstanding human beings are a dime a dozen'. I don't agree. But let me first quote Lakoff correctly. The quote comes from Lakoff's (1987) influential book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. It is the concluding remark of a section on Whorf's views in Chapter 18 (titled 'Whorf and Relativism') of the book. I quote:
 * Whorf was not only a pioneer in linguistics. He was a pioneer as a human being. That should not be forgotten.

In my opinion, a quote like this from a linguist like this is highly relevant to the article. Whorf was (and still is) controversial in linguistics; Lakoff admits so, but at the same time highly appreciates some of his thoughts, and furthermore adds that Whorf was a pioneer as a human being. I've re-added it, corrected it, and added the reference. &mdash; mark &#9998; 00:48, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * So lemme see: Linguists like Lakoff (prominent, i guess?) are experts on being a "pioneer as a human being", which i can't deny, knowing little about linguistics and nothing about lingists like Lakoff. But still, how is this relevant ... hmmm, i can't very well make an argument against that, since i have not the slightest idea what it means to be "a pioneer as a human being".
 * I'll tell you what, i'll start over: What value could this conceivably add to the article?
 * --Jerzy(t) 05:00, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)
 * Please don't feel too annoyed, I'll try to clarify myself. Granted, Lakoff is no expert on being a pioneer as a human being. What makes the quote relevant is that it is the opinion of a prominent linguist about someone that is still controversial in linguistics. In that light, the first part of the quote ('pioneer in linguistics') is no doubt more important and more substantial than the second part; but I think it makes sense to include the full quote (the "that should not be forgotten" part is of minor importance though). Furthermore, I think the change to 'pioneer' makes the quote more acceptable and more relevant than the previous ill-cited version. It is more easy to see why someone could be a pioneer as a human being than why someone would be just 'an outstanding human being'. In fact, Lakoff argues why Whorf was a pioneer as to his weltanschauung. I'll quote the context of his statement (Lakoff 1987:330):
 * One all-important thing should be remembered about Whorf. He did most of his work at a time when Nazism was on the rise in Europe and jingoism was prevalent in America. At that time, white people were assumed, even in much of the U.S., to be more intelligent than people with skins of other colors. Western civilaztion was assumed to be the pinnacle of intellectual achievement; other civilizations were considered inferior. 'Culture' meant European and American culture, not Hopi culture or Balinese culture. 'Literature' meant European and American literature. 'Logic' meant Western logic, not logic as it developed in China and India. 'Scientific thought' was the last word in rationality, and it of course belonged to us. It was even thought that Western languages were 'advanced' and that nowestern languages were 'primitive'. The very idea that 'uneducated' Indians, who were still considered savages by many, could reason as well as educated Americans and Europeans was extraordinary and radical. The notion that their conceptual system better fit scientific reality&mdash;that we could learn from them&mdash;bordered on the unthinkable


 * Whorf was not only a pioneer in linguistics. He was a pioneer as a human being. That should not be forgotten.
 * On reading the article again, I would say that the article could be more outspoken on Whorf's pioneering position in his time and background. The quote of course is a good start. Let me know what you think!  &mdash; mark &#9998; 10:22 & 11:09, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC) [Timestamp corrected by Jerzy(t) 18:37, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)]


 * I think the above explanation is a great help toward a worthwhile replacement for either of the things i removed. (But i still find it hard to see a role for the quote itself, even as an intro to this more relevant material. The quote is too cryptic, and too saturated with the pretentious overstatement of funeral eulogies, to convey this role -- a role that may actually deserve such praise.)  Perhaps this history-of-ideas material duplicates, or should be the start of, a separate article about how racism stopped being a self-evidently virtue in white America, or in the West. (Any average liberal (in my esitmation of that category) who saw "Unforgivable Blackness", the new Ken Burns/Geoffrey Ward documentary on Jack Johnson and the great white hopes (see also The Great White Hope) in the past week is likely to share my awe at how hidden that transition has been. I don't know if WP covers it at all well.)
 * We certainly should have a link from Benjamin Whorf to such an article, next to something about "important figure in [whatever, or "the development of" whatever]". We're not talking about cultural relativism, i think (tho certainly there is a relationship): IMO CR is much more theoretical and intellectual, while this involves a lot of gut-level assumptions.  Nor is this a matter of anti-racism, which is also much more self-conscious.
 * BTW, IMO, this makes it mandatory for the article to have two major sections, one on his linguistics work and one on the attitude shift, and i suggest that that, rather than a quote at the tail of a single section, is the useful starting point we need.
 * --Jerzy(t) 21:00, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)
 * :) I guess we won't come to an agreement about the quote (but I am glad that it's not 'utter bosh' to you anymore). Regarding the other points, I fully agree with you. Whorf isn't high on my to do list at present, but your sketch would be a good start.  &mdash; mark &#9998; 22:31, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I examined the page history, hoping that the bibliography grew from some reasonable length to its present exhaustive size (unusable for encyclopedic purposes), and that i could keep the current versions of the original entries while moving the new ones here. But it sprang forth full-grown like Venus. If no one is prepared to move the excess to here in the next week, it should be moved here en masse, to serve as source material, while we wait as long as it takes for someone to come up with something like a half-dozen crucial items. --Jerzy(t) 21:44, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)
 * Wholeheartedly agree. An annotated bibliography would be great; at the very least, his most important works should be singled out.  &mdash; mark &#9998; 22:31, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I feel that the page should include some criticism of Whorf's work, which is plentiful. At the very least, Whorf's explanation for the "empty" gasoline drum incident is laughable, it's far more likely the worker was fooled by his eyes than by any semantics of the word "empty." Whorf's claims about the Apache mind are even my ludicrous, as Steven Pinker points out in his book The Language Instinct (pg. 50), "First, Whorf did not actually study any Apaches; it is not clear that he ever met one. His assertions about Apache psychology are based entirely on Apache grammar-making his argument circular.  Apaches speak differently, so they must think differently.  How do we know that they think differently?  Just listen to the way they speak!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.63.52 (talk) 03:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Whorf and his exposure to the Hopi
Did Whorf live among the Hopi people, and if so, for how long?


 * As far as I remember, he spent a few weeks among the Hopi - no more than that. Most of his informants were Hopi he knew in New York. My very personal opinion is that this fact invalidates a lot of his work on the Hopi language. His idea that language restricts what we can think could never apply to his informants, as they all spoke English as well as Hopi, and therefore were free of the restrictions.


 * There is a fairly convincing rebuttal of Whorf in Donald E. Brown's Human Universals, ISBN 007008209X for anyone who happens to have it and wants to dig up material to add to the article. Mlewan 21:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "His idea that language restricts what we can think could never apply to his informants, as they all spoke English as well as Hopi, and therefore were free of the restrictions."
 * On the contrary, Whorf's contention that "language restricts what we can think" (which itself greatly simplifies his work) omits 71.33.134.136 (talk) 15:16, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * "His idea that language restricts what we can think could never apply to his informants, as they all spoke English as well as Hopi, and therefore were free of the restrictions." On the contrary, Whorf's contention that "language restricts what we can think" (which itself greatly simplifies his work) omits an implicit piece of his larger argument: that it is only through bilingualism (in the case of Whorf, or his informants) that the necessary (comparative) perspective is available to recognize and identify the differences under discussion throughout his work. 71.33.134.136 (talk) 15:28, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

The version of the Whorf article that is up on September 7, 2010 cites Guy Deutscher's book Through the Language Glass to say that Whorf never visited the Hopi reservation (notes 9 and 10). While it is true that Whorf did most of his work on Hopi with an informant in New York, he made at least one trip to the Hopi in 1938. You will find this in John B. Carroll's introduction to his edited volume of Whorf's papers, Language, Thought, and Reality, 1956, p. 17; and see Penny Lee, The Whorf Theory Complex, 1996, p. 13. Whorf had also done field research in Mexico on other languages of the Uto-Aztecan family. Hippojo (talk) 02:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Grammar
The remark credited to Whorf about Hopi seems to be ungrammatical.

Contradiction in wiki redirects for relativity and Sapir-whorf
This article states that ''his theory of linguistic relativity, which he developed with Edward Sapir. Nowadays, this theory is often misrepresented as being synonymous with the "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", which was in fact a posthumous appellation, referring to a number of Whorf's ideas on top of linguistic relativity,'', but Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis redirects to linguistic relativism, in an article which states they are the same thing.

Which one is correct? (I don't know enough myself, but as a user I can see that clearly one of the articles is wrong.) VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 01:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This one is the less than accurate article - I will take care of this shortly.·Maunus· ƛ · 05:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you! VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Whorf Quote
I reverted [this edit] because it does appear to be by Whorf, in Language, Thought and Reality. I can't find a page number, but [here] we can see a number of books citing it as by him, about half before internet memes could spread, and a few rather respectable ones. The revert was done because I think the quote is properly attributed to Whorf, but a page number would be nice for anyone who has a copy of the book... VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually I don't think any of these quoted books are reliable sources - to me it doesn't look like a Whorf quote at at but rather a (misunderstood) rephrasing of his ideas to fit better as an aforism than what he actually wrote. I also cannot find it in language, thought and reality. For example searching here gives no hits. Also widely occuring misquotations is not a thing beælonging exclusively to the internet age - that has happened since classical times. ·Maunus· ƛ · 17:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean. Of course, the problem with google books is that it is not complete, but then again, I'm a little suspicious that none of the references I found has a page number. There is a possibility that it comes from someone else - Stuart Chase in [Harpers] in 1954. I don't have a subscription so I can't check the article. As it is, I'll bow to your better knowledge of Whorf's writing.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 18:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Copyedits
Pretty much done except for the lead, but I'm not very good with leads. At a quick glance I think the lead should be trimmed down a bit too to make it easier to read for the casual reader who doesn't make it through the entire article.

A couple of questions and points that I may have missed because I worked from the bottom up:
 * when did he quit his job with the Hartford?
 * what happened to his wife? There's a single sentence about his family, unless I missed some, and I think a bit more about his personal life, if the sources have that information, might be nice.
 * Maybe the anti-Whorfian/Whorfian section should be moved the bottom as a "Reception/legacy" type section.

That's about it. Back in a few days to finish the lead. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:14, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * He didn't he worked there untill he died.
 * I don't know, presumably she survived him. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:03, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Did he work for the Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut? I ask b/c for some reason I seem to think they have an office in Boston so I thought he stayed in Boston after MIT. I could be wrong though. It's quite amazing that he managed to study, research and write as much as he did with a full-time job. Just curious. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * He lived in Winthrop and moved to Hartford when he got the job directly out of MIT, and he stayed in Hartford the rest of his life. The company may have an office in Boston, but he didn't work there. And yes it is pretty amazing - I think he probably had a lot of freedom as a traveling inspector. And I imagine him teaching Sapir's seminar at night after working during the day. I don't know what happened to his children, except that Penny Lee interviewed his daughter Celia for her book. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Apparently Celia stayed in connecticut but Raymond moved to California . And his grandson was a biologist and died in California in 2005. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yale is in the same state and it's a small state so possible. But still, very amazing. Thanks for clarifying. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:14, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Einstein
Alford 1981 p. 21 cites a 1941 Radio Speech by Einstein in which he says: "What is it that brings about such an ultimate connection between language and thinking?... The mental development of the individual and his ability to form concepts depend to a high degree upon language. This makes us realize to what extent the same language means the same mentality." He then goes on to analyze the parallels between Whorf's presentation of the linguistic relativity principle and Einsteins' principle of general relativity in depth. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

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Article name
I was astounded to see this article at Benjamin Lee Whorf with a redirect from Benjamin Whorf. But it appears to be correct, and I have learned something.

I studied Whorf fairly intensely in the mid 1990s and rarely saw his middle name mentioned, and then mainly in formal bibliographies. But Google books gives 41,400 hits as opposed to only 9,360 when I leave out the middle name.

The article was unilaterally moved ten years ago, ''05:31, 11 September 2008‎ Rdsmith4 (talk | contribs | block)‎. . (32 bytes) (+32)‎. . (moved Benjamin Whorf to Benjamin Lee Whorf over redirect: Most common rendering of Whorf's name.)'' apparently without discussion, but apparently also quite correctly. That editor has not edited for almost a year so I don't think it's worth pinging them to ask for evidence. The evidence is there if you look. Andrewa (talk) 07:09, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Having myself studied Whorf "fairly intensely", there is no doubt to me that the inclusion of the "Lee" is both more correct and more common in the literature. His mothers surname was "Lee Whorf" (Lee being her maiden name, and Whorf her husbands) and he passed "Lee Whorf" on to his daughter Celia. So "Lee" was not simply a middle name, but a maternal surname in his family. And as you correctly show, by far the most common way of referring to him in the literature is as "Benjamin Lee Whorf".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:57, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that confirms my research. Our reading lists must have been rather different, I wonder why? But the important thing is, any editor who has had a similar reading list to mine (or to the creator of the article, presumably) will now see this discussion, rather than just seeing an undiscussed and uncontroversially revertable move.
 * Fascinating guy, agreed? Andrewa (talk) 03:50, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed, on the correctness of the historic rename, and that he is a fascinating guy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:23, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Flammable and inflammable

 * I can't source it right now and the article doesn't mention it (although it does cite a similar and far more relevant example, but later in his career). One of Whorf's investigations were of a paint factory fire. The non-English-background storeman knew that flammable liquids would ignite, so he reasoned that the drums marked highly inflammable would be highly unlikely to burn, and stored them next to the heater, and the plant burned down. This helped spark his curiosity into the way language works. Andrewa (talk) 05:44, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The anecdote about the cannisters is in the article. It is a little different from what you remembered.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:21, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I meant above by a similar and far more relevant example. Do you mean they may be the same incident? Unlikely IMO, but I suppose possible. Andrewa (talk) 08:42, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think there is only one incident and someone may have misremembered it when recounting it. It seems very odd that two such similar incidents would have occured in his career. The one in the article is the only one I have ever encountered in the literature - he writes about it in his most famous and often quoted essay. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:47, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You may be right, I don't think we have evidence to be sure. Disagree that the incidents are so similar for it to be unlikely for him to have experienced both... he was employed by the fire insurance company for a number of years, and the accounts have many important differences.
 * But what most puzzles me about your confidence that they are the same incident is that the one for which we have sources, and can therefore be more confident of the details, is by far the more directly relevant to Whorf's main contributions to linguistics. While chinese whispers can do wonders, people tend to "improve" stories, rather than make them less relevant.
 * I still hope that someone will provide a source for the second story. That's the only justification for discussing it on this page at all. I may even find it myself... my library is still largely in boxes, but I'm not sure that I kept those notes anyway. Andrewa (talk) 10:39, 13 March 2018 (UTC)