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Оглавление“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. . . . Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
—GEORGE ORWELL
“Politics and the English Language,” 1946
“So, would you say that doublespeak is increasing or decreasing?” the interviewer would ask. I was asked that question repeatedly after I wrote this first book on doublespeak. At that time I demurred, claiming I had no data or evidence to answer the question one way or another. Certainly there was a lot of doublespeak flowing through the channels of public discourse as my book documented, and doublespeak did indeed appear to be increasing, as the dozens of examples sent to me every week seemed to indicate. I would like to think that the publication of my book had made people more aware of the language directed at them. Perhaps the frog in the pan of hot water suddenly realized that the water was getting hotter and maybe he should do something about it.
It’s been over 25 years since this book was published, and over 35 years since I started collecting examples of doublespeak. Much has happened to and with the English language since then. The development and spread of new technology—the internet, cell phones, social media, etc.—has contributed a large number of new words to our language, and the language is the better for it. More importantly, social media is all about language, so now more than ever people are using language more in their daily lives. However, with this increasing use of language and all the very useful new words has come an increasing stream of doublespeak. More importantly, and most disturbing, there has come an acquiescence to, if not an acceptance of, doublespeak. So, yes, doublespeak is increasing, both in amount and usage. For the past 25 years it has continued to grow and spread, infecting public discourse at all levels in all areas.
With this growth in the amount and usage of doublespeak has come a kind of resignation to such language, if not acceptance. Where once people would laugh at or even object to doublespeak now we find a quiet acceptance. Doublespeak that once prompted disbelief or in some cases outrage now passes unnoticed and without comment. Doublespeak has become part of the working vocabulary of public discourse. Thousands of people are killed in misdirected drone strikes but we do not speak of dead children or entire wedding parties slaughtered by aerial bombardment. We speak instead of “collateral damage” during an “aerial interdiction mission.” We do not torture but use “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the same “techniques” used by German and Japanese soldiers during World War II that resulted in their trials for committing war crimes. People, especially politicians and other public figures, do not lie but merely “misspeak,” or their words are “taken out of context.” Nor do such people make racist, sexist, or other offensive statements. They make “inappropriate remarks” and are therefore not to be criticized for being racist or sexist.
Of course there is plenty of new doublespeak, created to mislead by pretending to be the opposite of what it really means. When the opinion polls revealed that the public did not want Social Security privatization, proponents started talking about “personal accounts” for Social Security, which is the same as privatization. While many people, and the US Constitution, oppose government support for religion, proponents invented “faith-based initiatives” that channel government money to churches. Ending an individual right to sue when you are injured by the neglect of a corporation or others is called “tort reform” which does not reform the tort process but ends it. And when some politicians wanted to give immense tax breaks to the super rich they invented the term “death tax” to replace the accurate term “estate tax,” ignoring that the doublespeak term is incorrect. After all, the tax is levied on the estate not the death, just as the income tax is levied on the income and not the job that produces the income.
The list can go on, and if you have been paying attention you can contribute your own examples to the doublespeak that now pervades our public discourse. I hope you will become an active critic of doublespeak, for only by being aware of it and confronting the use of doublespeak can we make any progress in purging it from our discourse.
I believe this book has stood the test of time. While the historical incidents cited here may appear dated, the language that sprang from them has not gone away but has instead become too much a part of our language. I believe that by knowing what gave birth to such language we can better understand just how deceptive and misleading this language is and how it contributes to the corruption of thought and public discourse, just as Orwell warned us.
I hope this book can continue to contribute to the struggle to create public language that illuminates not conceals, accepts responsibility not evades it, advances thought not prevent it, and creates a public discourse in which all the participants understand what everyone is saying.
