Definition:
Deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public. See also: doublespeak.
Etymology:
From Newspeak, a language invented by George Orwell in the novel 1984
Examples and Observations:
- "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought--that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc--should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words."
(George Orwell, 1984, 1949) - "Newspeak is the product of a totalitarian control over semantics, history and the media more ruthlessly complete than any which has yet emerged in the modern world . . ..
"In the West, the comparative freedom of the media has not necessarily clarified matters. Whereas totalitarian semantic control may produce an unrealistic dogmatism, free semantic enterprise has resulted in an anarchic tug-of-war in which terms like democracy, socialism and revolution become virtually meaningless because they are appropriated by all sections for legitimation and abuse."
(Geoffrey Hughes, Words in Time, 1988) - "Beyond any shadow of a doubt, the ugliest phrase to enter the English language last year was 'extraordinary rendition.' To those of us who love words, this phrase's brutalisation of meaning is an infallible signal of its intent to deceive. . . .
"Language, too, has laws, and those laws tell us this new American usage is improper--a crime against the word. Every so often the habitual newspeak of politics throws up a term whose calculated blandness makes us shiver with fear."
(Salman Rushdie, quoted in Sydney Morning Herald, January 10, 2006)
