About a century after the year Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) was born, his theory complex is still the object of keen interest to linguists. Rencently, scholars have argued that it was not his theory complex itself, but an over-simplified, reduced section taken out of context that has become known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that has met with so much resistance among linguists over the last few decades. Not only did Whorf present his views much more subtly than most people would believe, but he also dealt with a great number of other issues in his work.

"The hypothesis suggested by Benjamin Lee Whorf that the structure of a person's language is a factor in the way in which he understands reality and behaves with respect to it has attracted the attention of linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, as well as a large segment of the public." Science
"Benjamin Lee Whorf's scholarly contributions were substantial both in technical linguistics and in the broader area for which he is best known, the relation between language perception and thought.... The basic thesis, stated by others before Whorf but developed by him and given his name in recent literature, is that our perception of the world and our ways of thinking about it are deeply influenced by the structure of the languages we speak.... Any student of comparative literature or other cross-cultural study of values must at least take Whorf SMYTHs thesis into account . . ." -- Literature East and West, the Newsletter of the Conference on Oriental-Western Library Relations of the Modern Language Association of America.
"With his edition of Language, Thought, and Reality, Professor Carroll has . . . performed an invaluable service for linguists everywhere . . . A carefully planned and skillfully edited presentation of Whorf THEs philosophy of language, to which has been added an interesting foreword by Stuart Chase, an invaluable essay by Carroll, and an extremely illuminating and useful bibliography. . ." -- International Journal of American Linguistics
"An essay showing why Hopi is superior to English as a scientific language, a criticism of Basic English as Complex English, and an account of the semantics of fire prevention are not only readable but delightful." - New Yorker