At first, he was happy, but then was horrified when he learned that his language was being used not as a replacement, but as a bridge to learn traditional languages. Then, one day, he learned that that for years, a centre in Canada had been using his symbols to teach children with cerebral palsy to communicate.
He sent letters to governments, hoping that they would adopt his new system, but all his efforts failed. Instead of using words to communicate ideas, he would use images – he called it Blissymbolics. Blissymbolicsīliss invented a new way of communicating: semantography. This concern about semantics is an old one, and many such arguments can be found in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke. Bliss thought that language was by its nature deceptive, that people could be fooled into believing dangerous ideas because words lacked precision – a politician could phrase a sentence in a particular way that would make it appeal to a broader group of people, or he could promote racism and mask it by using scientific arguments, veiled in vague, philosophical language.
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