Good writing style as defined by George Orwell

[Data]

George Orwell is best known for his novels, but he was also an essayist. One such essay is about writing and it is called Politics and the English Language (follow the link for the raw text of the essay).

He connects poor writing to poor thought:

[It] is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. [...] The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

Then he gives some examples about bad writing style, analyzes them, and gives some recommendations for good writing style. He continues:

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. [...] When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases [...] one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy [...] A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity. In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Then he presents some rules for application in daily life, because he thinks that the "decadence of our language is probably curable":

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I shared this because I think it can be applied here in the forum for better communication. This is a kind of minimalism, but in the sense of simplicity plus expressiveness. Orwell finishes his essay:

Political language [...] is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase [...] into the dustbin, where it belongs.

[Vulcan59]

Thanks for bringing this up Data.

My kids often come back from school with an essay to write consisting of "x" number of words. Usually I can say that the whole essay can be done in a lot less words but the problem for them is to have that "x" number of words or else the essay is not accepted.

So the entire essay consists of adding extra words to make up the word count and does nothing to content. In fact current essay writing seems to encourage bad writing by insisting on word count rather than content.  And they break all the rules below.

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

[Data]

Exactly. The psychopathic control system focuses especially on children via law enforced 'education'. It is amazing how such words like "education" are used to really say the exact opposite. That's the trap for people that aren't aware of this process.

Today I was in our local ground school because I was setting up a computer there. They even have kind of NLP mantras hanging on the wall, like "My learning will become better and better", "I like what I am learning", etc. I guess that should weaken them up -- at age 6 -- for the popular "You Create Your Own Reality" mindset.

[Jeremy F Kreuz]

Orwell called this in his 1984 novel 'doublespeak'. 

From the website: http://www.damronplanet.com/doublespeak/whatisdoublespeak.htm 

We hear and read doublespeak every day, but what, exactly, is doublespeak? Webster's dictionary defines doublespeak with these words: evasive, ambiguous, high-flown language intended to deceive or confuse.

In his bestselling book Doublespeak, William Lutz notes that doublespeak is not an accident or a "slip of the tongue." Instead, it is a deliberate, calculated misuse of language.

Specific Attributes of Doublespeak

misleads
distorts reality
pretends to communicate
makes the bad seem good
avoids or shifts responsibility
makes the negative appear positive
creates a false verbal map of the world
limits, conceals, corrupts, and prevents thought
makes the unpleasant appear attractive or tolerable
creates incongruity between reality and what is said or not said

History of the Word "Doublespeak"
As these attributes indicate, doublespeak can be seen as analogous to doublethink and Newspeak, concepts created by George Orwell in 1984. Using doublethink, a person could hold two opposing ideas in his or her mind at the same time, fully believing in both ideas. "Newspeak" was the official language used to express the ideas of doublethink.

Doublespeak can be classified into several different types. Being able to recognize the different forms doublespeak can take can help you spot doublespeak more easily.

euphemism
words that attempt to soften, hide, or distort reality by putting the thing described into a better light, making the object it describes sound less frightening, less threatening, or less offensive

jargon
specialized language used by a particular professional, trade, or hobby group; this specialized language used in discourse with lay audiences; overly-complex terms used to impress others

gobbledygook
many long, sophisticated words (think "gobs of words") used in long, convoluted sentences to confuse the audience and hide the real issue of the discourse

inflated language
puffed-up, important-sounding words used to give commonplace things and events an elevated, glowing appearance

Examples of Euphemisms
categorical inaccuracy or terminological inexactitude: a lie
constructive dismissal, voluntary severance, vocational relocation, or career assignment and relocation: fired or laid off the job
senior citizen or the chronologically advantaged: old

Examples of Jargon
organoleptic analysis: the act of smelling something
fused silicate: glass
distributionally conservative notions: conservative economic policies

Example of Gobbledygook
Here's a classic piece of gobbledygook from Alan Greenspan. (It's OK to laugh when you read this. As Lutz mentions, if we all laughed at statements such as these, perhaps the people making the statements would be forced to quit.)
It is a tricky problem to find the particular calibration in timing that would be appropriate to stem the acceleration in risk premiums created by falling incomes without prematurely aborting the decline in the inflation-generated risk premiums.

Examples of Inflated Language
negative patient care outcome: the patient died
mental activity at the margins: insanity
reutilization marketing yard: junkyard

Example of Mixed Doublespeak
Sometimes the line between euphemism, jargon, and inflated language becomes blurred, as the following paragraph taken from Lutz's Doublespeak shows:

Teachers are "educators" these days, or "classroom mangers," or "learning facilitators" who possess effective "instructional delivery skills" which they demonstrate in "microteaching sessions." Teaching is called the "learning process" and learning is called "adjusted behavior." Students don't study, they spend "time on task" in their "learning environment."

Doublespeak Corrupts Thought
Think of it this way: language is the basis of all human communication. In fact, it may not be too farfetched to say that language forms the basis of all human actions. After all, we use language to think, to make decisions, to express our thoughts and feelings on issues. Then, we act as a result of processing information, which we can only do by using language. So, the language we hear and use in our everyday lives influences us and helps shape our opinions to a greater degree than we probably realize. If the language we hear and read is corrupt and misleading, it will corrupt and mislead our thought processes.

Doublespeak Destroys Communication
Not only does language affect how we think and act, it also affects our ability to communicate with other people. To discuss issues intelligently, we must use the language that we all agree on. If some people or groups use their own language of doublespeak that hides the truth and misleads the receivers of the message, then open, honest discussion cannot take place. In other words, we cannot truly relate with others. As Lutz notes, ". . . it is only through clear language that we have any hope of defining, debating, and deciding the issues of public policy that confront us."

Doublespeak Erodes Trust
Not only does the language of doublespeak corrupt thought and destroy the ability to communicate, it also destroys relationships by eroding trust. Our nation is founded on the idea of free speech--of open, honest discussion of ideas and issues. When we hear doublespeak from all sides--government, education, the advertising industry, the media--we begin to be cynical and distrustful toward these institutions. This attitude of distrust then adds yet another barrier to true, open communication.

How Do You Spot Doublespeak?
Even though you know the definition of doublespeak and are familiar with the different forms it can take, you may still have a hard time detecting doublespeak. One way to spot doublespeak and its accompanying insincerity is to ask questions about what is being said.


Lutz and others recommend asking these questions:
Who is saying what to whom?
Under what conditions?
Under what circumstances?
With what intent?
With what results?

By asking and answering these questions, you will be able to see the whole context of the discourse, or the "semantic environment" as Lutz calls it.

To analyze any type of discourse, you will need to look at both the speakers and the receivers, the purposes of the speakers and receivers, the language that is normally used in similar situations, and the language that is actually used in a particular situation. Detecting doublespeak can be hard work!

Where Do You Look to Find Doublespeak?
Doublespeak occurs frequently when people use the language of one semantic environment in another. For example, even though several government officials had broken the law and later lied under oath to cover up what they had done, President Bush pardoned them, using the language of patriotism in the semantic context of law. The ones who broke the law were not "criminals," but "patriots," and what they had done was a "criminalization of policy differences," not an illegal act.

Doublespeak Links
http://www.dt.org/html/Doublespeak.html
Life under the Chief Doublespeak Officer by William Lutz

http://www.westwords.com/GUFFEY/text_only/euquiztx.html
Euphemism Quiz Take the challenge!

http://texasobserver.org/subjects/columns/ht228.html
Jargon of Tyrrany by Jim Hightower

http://www.scn.org/newspeak/
American Newspeak "A weekly satirical e-zine celebrating the Orwellian face of the 1990's with cutting edge advances in the art of doublespeak carefully scavenged from the back pages of our finer newspapers." Note: The material on this site appears to be from 1997 and earlier.

[3D Resident]

I used to have a bad habit of stringing together bunches of words that "sounded really clever and sophisticated". And I'd often use pairs of words together because those pairs of words were commonly heard/written together by the mainstream media, and I never questioned whether both words were really required. One example I can think of right now is "quite frankly". Out of habit, I use those pairs of words all the time when I speak, but when writing I usually just go with "frankly", unless what I'm saying is extreme frankness, when the use of the adverb "quite" is warranted. I'm now very careful about the words I choose to use. I consider whether they really mean what I intend to say, or if they have only been used out of habit or because they "sound good".

[voyageur]

Thank you Data, a most well received post to ponder and reference when writing in different forms.

Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language’ reminded me of Gurdjieff’s ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’, wherein he recounts his thoughts on writing;

But what has literature of contemporary civilisation to give? Nothing whatsoever, except the development of, so to say, “word prostitution".

The fundamental cause of this corruption of present-day literature is…concentrated not on the quality of the thought and exactitude with which it is transmitted, but only on the striving for exterior polish or, as is otherwise said, beauty of style-thanks to which there has finally resulted what I called word prostitution.

[Marcus Aurelius]

i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Thank you very much Data. I will ensure to not brake these rules.

[anothermagyar]

But what has literature of contemporary civilisation to give? Nothing whatsoever, except the development of, so to say, “word prostitution".

It is reminded me back during the communism when we used to go to sleep when a politician had a speech...
They used exactly these form the examples:

Doublespeak can be classified into several different types. Being able to recognize the different forms doublespeak can take can help you spot doublespeak more easily.

euphemism
words that attempt to soften, hide, or distort reality by putting the thing described into a better light, making the object it describes sound less frightening, less threatening, or less offensive

jargon
specialized language used by a particular professional, trade, or hobby group; this specialized language used in discourse with lay audiences; overly-complex terms used to impress others

gobbledygook
many long, sophisticated words (think "gobs of words") used in long, convoluted sentences to confuse the audience and hide the real issue of the discourse

inflated language
puffed-up, important-sounding words used to give commonplace things and events an elevated, glowing appearance

Many times the way these politicians spoke it was ridiculous.
They used sentences like: " The rotten capitalist world stands right on the edge of abyss."

Then this: " The communists always one step further then capitalists."

A Hungarian comedian just put this together.

" The rotten capitalist world stands right on the edge of abyss."
" The communists always one step further then capitalists."
 
So the communist already on the bottom of the abyss...
 

 

[Gertrudes]

Thank you Data and Jeremy Kreuz, it is certainly helpfull. I remember well how in Orwell's 1984 the issue of language was explored, and how it can (perhaps I should say is) used to manipulates masses with unimaginable consequences.

I hope this is not off topic, but a year ago I was wondering what made me really listen to certain people. One of my conclusions was also that the effectiveness rested in simplicity, if you can save words, save them. So I decided to make a test and with the agreement of all the participants video one of my classes (me teaching). Watching that video was shocking. Gurdjieff's words on one having a completely different image of oneself slapped me in the face. The point is, watching that video a few times was a powerful tool of self learning. Amongst several things I noticed over use and misuse of words; abuse of adjectives when completely unnecessary which, in my case, showed fear of saying something straight forward.

If carefully observed, the way language is used can tell a lot.
Maybe not for everyone, but sometimes using an external tool such as an audio or video recorder can help to bring more objectivity to what really is going on with ourselves.

If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly

I completely agree. I have been trying to consciously monitor my speech and have come to a few thoughts. Firstly, it is not an easy task; I also think this monitoring merges with self remembering from 4th way teachings. Speech is greatly mechanic, being conscious while speaking is something that takes effort and regular practice. If I am aware (or as aware as I can be) when speaking, my speech will be  shockingly different from a non conscious one.

Doublespeak Erodes Trust
Not only does the language of doublespeak corrupt thought and destroy the ability to communicate, it also destroys relationships by eroding trust. Our nation is founded on the idea of free speech--of open, honest discussion of ideas and issues. When we hear doublespeak from all sides--government, education, the advertising industry, the media--we begin to be cynical and distrustful toward these institutions. This attitude of distrust then adds yet another barrier to true, open communication.

So true! I also notice that people will respond accordingly when language is used free of "adornments" such as the attributes mentioned in Doublespeak. We will respond aware, as a response of the awareness of the speaker, and with trust.

[PopHistorian]

Jeremy wrote << Orwell called this in his 1984 novel 'doublespeak'.  >>

Just an FYI, a technical detail - I haven't read the book in a long time, but I've read many times that the word "doublespeak" was coined in the early '50s and is incorrectly attributed to Orwell, and that the word does not appear in 1984 at all.  Just "newspeak" and "doublethink."  
Here's one:  _http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Doublespeak

BTW, he was dead-on with this one, eh?  "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

[webglider]

"Newspeak" was the language that Orwell coined.  Its purpose was to reduce the meanings and numbers of words so that it would be almost impossible to think clearly.

I've copied the principles of Newspeak from this site: http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html

 

Excerpt from
"The Principles of Newspeak"
An appendix to 1984
Written by : George Orwell in 1948


Newspeak was the official language of Oceania, and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles of the Times were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried out by a specialist, It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile, it gained ground steadily, all party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. The version in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of Newspeak dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the dictionary, that we are concerned here.

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. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression  to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.

To give a single example - The word free still existed in Newspeak, but could only be used in such statements as "The dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispenses with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when not containing newly created words, would be barely intelligible to an English-speaker of our own day. Newspeak words were divided into three distinct classes, known as the A vocabulary, the B vocabulary, and the C vocabulary. It would be simpler to discuss each class separately, but the grammatical peculiarities of the language can be dealt with in the section devoted to the A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three categories.


The A vocabulary. The A vocabulary consisted of words needed for the business of everyday life --- For such things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely of words that we already possess -- words like hit, run, dog, tree, sugar, house, field -- but in comparison with the present-day English vocabulary, their number was extremely small, while their meanings were far more rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly understood concept. It would have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.

The grammar of Newspeak has two outstanding peculiarities. The first of these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very abstract words such as if or when) could be used either as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and noun form, when of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word thought, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by think, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle was involved here; in some cases it was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in other cases the verb. Even where a noun and a verb of kindred meanings were not etymologically connected, one or other of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example, no such word as cut, its meaning being sufficiently covered by the noun-verb knife. Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix -ful to the noun verb, and adverbs by adding -wise. Thus, for example, speedful meant "rapid" and speedwise meant "quickly."  Certain of our present-day adjectives, such as good, strong, big, black, soft, were retained, but their total number was very small. There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival meaning could be arrived at by adding -ful to a noun-verb. None of the now-existing adverbs was retained, except for a few already ending in -wise; the -wise termination was invariable. the word well, for example, was replaced by goodwise.

In addition, any word -- this again applied in principle to every word in the language -- could be negative by adding the affix un-, or could be strengthened by the affix plus-, or, for still greater emphasis doubleplus-. Thus, for example, uncold meant "warm" while pluscold and doublepluscold meant, respectively, "very cold" and "superlatively cold". It was also possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by prepositional affixes such as ante-, post-, up-, down-, etc. By such methods it was possible to bring about an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word good, there was no need for such a word as bad, since the required meaning was equally well --indeed better-- expressed by ungood. All that was necessary, in any case where two words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which of them to suppress. Dark, for example, could be replaced by Unlight, or light by undark, according to preference.

The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which are mentioned below, all inflections followed the same rules. Thus in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were the same and ended in -ed. The preterite of steal was stealed, the preterite of think was thinked, and so on throughout the language, all such forms as swam, gave, brought, spoke, taken, etc., being abolished. All plurals were made by adding -s or -es as the case might be. The plurals of man, ox, life, were mans, oxes, lifes. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by adding -er, -est (good, gooder, goodest), irregular forms and the more, most formation being suppressed.

The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstrative adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed their ancient usage, except that whom had been scrapped as unnecessary, and the shall, should tenses had been dropped, all their uses being covered by will and would. There were also certain irregularities in word-formation arising out of the need for rapid and easy speech. A word which was difficult to utter, or was liable to be incorrectly heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad word: occasionally therefore, for the sake of euphony, extra letters were inserted into a word or an archaic formation was retained. But this need made itself felt chiefly in connexion with the B vocabulary. Why so great an importance was attached to ease of pronunciation will be made clear later in this essay.



The B vocabulary.

The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them. Without a full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc it was difficult to use these words correctly. In some cases they could be translated into Oldspeak, or even into words taken from the A vocabulary, but this usually demanded a long paraphrase and always involved the loss of certain overtones. The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, often packing whole ranges of ideas into a few syllables, and at the same time more accurate and forcible than ordinary language.

The B words were in all cases compound words.

They consisted of two or more words, or portions of words, welded together in an easily pronounceable form. The resulting amalgam was always a noun-verb, and inflected according to the ordinary rules. To take a single example: the word goodthink, meaning, very roughly, 'orthodoxy', or, if one chose to regard it as a verb, 'to think in an orthodox manner'. This inflected as follows: noun-verb, goodthink; past tense and past participle, goodthinked; present participle, goodthinking; adjective, goodthinkful; adverb, goodthinkwise; verbal noun, goodthinker.

The B words were not constructed on any etymological plan. The words of which they were made up could be any parts of speech, and could be placed in any order and mutilated in any way which made them easy to pronounce while indicating their derivation. In the word crimethink (thoughtcrime), for instance, the think came second, whereas in thinkpol (Thought Police) it came first, and in the latter word police had lost its second syllable. Because of the great difficulty in securing euphony, irregular formations were commoner in the B vocabulary than in the A vocabulary. For example, the adjective forms of Minitrue, Minipax, and Miniluv were, respectively, Minitruthful, Minipeaceful, and Minilovely, simply because -trueful,-paxful, and -loveful were slightly awkward to pronounce. In principle, however, all B words could inflect, and all inflected in exactly the same way.

Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings, barely intelligible to anyone who had not mastered the language as a whole. Consider, for example, such a typical sentence from a Times leading article as Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc. The shortest rendering that one could make of this in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.' But this is not an adequate translation. To begin with, in order to grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak sentence quoted above, one would have to have a clear idea of what is meant by Ingsoc. And in addition, only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full force of the word bellyfeel, which implied a blind, enthusiastic acceptance difficult to imagine today; or of the word oldthink, which was inextricably mixed up with the idea of wickedness and decadence. But the special function of certain Newspeak words, of which oldthink was one, was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them. These words, necessarily few in number, had had their meanings extended until they contained within themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, could now be scrapped and forgotten. The greatest difficulty facing the compilers of the Newspeak Dictionary was not to invent new words, but, having invented them, to make sure what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of words they cancelled by their existence.

* Compound words such as speakwrite, were of course to be found in the A vocabulary, but these were merely convenient abbreviations and had no special ideological colour.

As we have already seen in the case of the word free, words which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them. Countless other words such as honour, justice, morality, internationalism, democracy, science, and religion had simply ceased to exist. A few blanket words covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. All words grouping themselves round the concepts of liberty and equality, for instance, were contained in the single word crimethink, while all words grouping themselves round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were contained in the single word oldthink. Greater precision would have been dangerous. What was required in a Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all nations other than his own worshipped 'false gods'. He did not need to know that these gods were called Baal, Osiris, Moloch, Ashtaroth, and the like: probably the less he knew about them the better for his orthodoxy. He knew Jehovah and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, that all gods with other names or other attributes were false gods. In somewhat the same way, the party member knew what constituted right conduct, and in exceedingly vague, generalized terms he knew what kinds of departure from it were possible. His sexual life, for example, was entirely regulated by the two Newspeak words sexcrime (sexual immorality) and goodsex (chastity). Sexcrime covered all sexual misdeeds whatever. It covered fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and other perversions, and, in addition, normal intercourse practised for its own sake. There was no need to enumerate them separately, since they were all equally culpable, and, in principle, all punishable by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of scientific and technical words, it might be necessary to give specialized names to certain sexual aberrations, but the ordinary citizen had no need of them. He knew what was meant by goodsex -- that is to say, normal intercourse between man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman: all else was sexcrime. In Newspeak it was seldom possible to follow a heretical thought further than the perception that it was heretical: beyond that point the necessary words were nonexistent.

No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral. A great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance, as joycamp (forced-labour camp) or Minipax (Ministry of Peace, i. e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact opposite of what they appeared to mean. Some words, on the other hand, displayed a frank and contemptuous understanding of the real nature of Oceanic society. An example was prolefeed, meaning the rubbishy entertainment and spurious news which the Party handed out to the masses. Other words, again, were ambivalent, having the connotation 'good' when applied to the Party and 'bad' when applied to its enemies. But in addition there were great numbers of words which at first sight appeared to be mere abbreviations and which derived their ideological colour not from their meaning, but from their structure.

So far as it could be contrived, everything that had or might have political significance of any kind was fitted into the B vocabulary. The name of every organization, or body of people, or doctrine, or country, or institution, or public building, was invariably cut down into the familiar shape; that is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest number of syllables that would preserve the original derivation. In the Ministry of Truth, for example, the Records Department, in which Winston Smith worked, was called Recdep, the Fiction Department was called Ficdep, the Teleprogrammes Department was called Teledep, and so on. This was not done solely with the object of saving time. Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed that the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organizations. Examples were such words as Nazi, Gestapo, Comintern, Inprecorr, Agitprop. In the beginning the practice had been adopted as it were instinctively, but in Newspeak it was used with a conscious purpose. It was perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one narrowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting out most of the associations that would otherwise cling to it.

The words Communist International, for instance, call up a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red flags, barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The word Comintern, on the other hand, suggests merely a tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doctrine. It refers to something almost as easily recognized, and as limited in purpose, as a chair or a table. Comintern is a word that can be uttered almost without taking thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily. In the same way, the associations called up by a word like Minitrue are fewer and more controllable than those called up by Ministry of Truth. This accounted not only for the habit of abbreviating whenever possible, but also for the almost exaggerated care that was taken to make every word easily pronounceable.

In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration other than exactitude of meaning. Regularity of grammar was always sacrificed to it when it seemed necessary. And rightly so, since what was required, above all for political purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable meaning which could be uttered rapidly and which roused the minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind. The words of the B vocabulary even gained in force from the fact that nearly all of them were very much alike. Almost invariably these words -- goodthink, Minipax, prolefeed, sexcrime, joycamp, Ingsoc, bellyfeel, thinkpol, and countless others -- were words of two or three syllables, with the stress distributed equally between the first syllable and the last. The use of them encouraged a gabbling style of speech, at once staccato and monotonous. And this was exactly what was aimed at. The intention was to make speech, and especially speech on any subject not ideologically neutral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness.

For the purposes of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or sometimes necessary, to reflect before speaking, but a Party member called upon to make a political or ethical judgment should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets. His training fitted him to do this, the language gave him an almost foolproof instrument, and the texture of the words, with their harsh sound and a certain willful ugliness which was in accord with the spirit of Ingsoc, assisted the process still further.

So did the fact of having very few words to choose from. Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised. Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other languages in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought. Ultimately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from the larynx without involving the higher brain centers at all. This aim was frankly admitted in the Newspeak word duckspeak, meaning ' to quack like a duck'. Like various other words in the B vocabulary, duckspeak was ambivalent in meaning. Provided that the opinions which were quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but praise, and when The Times referred to one of the orators of the Party as a doubleplusgood duckspeaker it was paying a warm and valued compliment.


The C vocabulary.


The C vocabulary was supplementary to the others and consisted entirely of scientific and technical terms. These resembled the scientific terms in use today, and were constructed from the same roots, but the usual care was taken to define them rigidly and strip them of undesirable meanings. They followed the same grammatical rules as the words in the other two vocabularies. Very few of the C words had any currency either in everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific worker or technician could find all the words he needed in the list devoted to his own speciality, but he seldom had more than a smattering of the words occurring in the other lists. Only a very few words were common to all lists, and there was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a habit of mind, or a method of thought, irrespective of its particular branches. There was, indeed, no word for 'Science', any meaning that it could possibly bear being already sufficiently covered by the word Ingsoc.

From the foregoing account it will be seen that in Newspeak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very low level, was well-nigh impossible. It was of course possible to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a species of blasphemy.

It would have been possible, for example, to say Big Brother is ungood. But this statement, which to an orthodox ear merely conveyed a self-evident absurdity, could not have been sustained by reasoned argument, because the necessary words were not available. Ideas inimical to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a vague wordless form, and could only be named in very broad terms which lumped together and condemned whole groups of heresies without defining them in doing so. One could, in fact, only use Newspeak for unorthodox purposes by illegitimately translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For example, All mans are equal was a possible Newspeak sentence, but only in the same sense in which All men are red-haired is a possible Oldspeak sentence.

It did not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed a palpable untruth-i.e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or strength. The concept of political equality no longer existed, and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged out of the word equal. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for any person well grounded in doublethink to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even the possibility of such a lapse would have vanished. A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of 'politically equal', or that free had once meant 'intellectually free', than for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to queen and rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable. And it was to be foreseen that with the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics of Newspeak would become more and more pronounced -- its words growing fewer and fewer, their meanings more and more rigid, and the chance of putting them to improper uses always diminishing.

When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with the past would have been severed. History had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored, and so long as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments, even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible and untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to some technical process or some very simple everyday action, or was already orthodox(goodthinkful would be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this meant that no book written before approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature could only be subjected to ideological translation -- that is, alteration in sense as well as language. Take for example the well-known passage from the Declaration of Independence:



    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government. . .


It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink. A full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.

A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being transformed in this way. Considerations of prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of certain historical figures, while at the same time bringing their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc. Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of translation: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would be finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first century. There were also large quantities of merely utilitarian literature -- indispensable technical manuals, and the like -- that had to be treated in the same way. It was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as 2050.


George Orwell




Some words known to have existed in Newspeak in their original form (but adhering to the guidelines above) :

    big, black, chocolate, cold, dog, forecast, file, field, full, good, hit, house, knife, life, man, ox, print, quote, rectify, report, run, soft, speech, speed, steal, strong, sugar, think, tree, write.


Words known to have been removed from newspeak : bad, democracy, innuendo, freedom, lie, thought, well.

Some examples of Newspeak/English Translations from Orwell's novel :

Original Newspeak : Times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unperson rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

English Translation : The reporting of Big Brother's "Order of the Day" in the Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes reference to nonexistent persons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing.

Original English : "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that thy are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government....."

Newspeak Translation : Crimethink

More examples of Newspeak from the novel 1984:

    times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify
    times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yr 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue
    times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify
    Items one comma five comma seven approved fullwise stop suggestion contained item six doubleplus ridiculous verging crimethink cancel stop unproceed constructionwise antegetting plusfull estimates machinery overheads stop end message.

[abstract]

My kids often come back from school with an essay to write consisting of "x" number of words. Usually I can say that the whole essay can be done in a lot less words but the problem for them is to have that "x" number of words or else the essay is not accepted.

So the entire essay consists of adding extra words to make up the word count and does nothing to content. In fact current essay writing seems to encourage bad writing by insisting on word count rather than content.  And they break all the rules below.

I hope this isn't just noise, but having been through american public school quite recently, allow me to say that I can learn more from this forum in a day than i ever did from a year of "school."

This isn't a suck-up or exaggeration, it is seriously the truth. 

I remember having to write "x" number of words...it's so dumb, how do you learn anything if your goal is to fulfill a word count quota?????  The reason I bring this up is because although my writing on
the forum is getting better and more correct, little by little, I'm amazed how much I didn't learn at school.  I constantly see words i'm not familiar with, I usually spell pretty good, but what i've noticed is that
my posts tend to be a little shorter and to the point, as I break that little "word quota" habit. 

[Seamas]

I shared this because I think it can be applied here in the forum for better communication. This is a kind of minimalism, but in the sense of simplicity plus expressiveness.

I know this is an old thread, but I came across it about a week ago and I found George Orwell's essay thought provoking.

I found myself nodding my head quite a bit while I was reading it because I recognize the bad habits he writes about in my own writing.  I am trying to keep his suggestions in mind as I write my posts and read back through them before posting.

The idea that we can work to clarify our thinking by working to clarify our writing is such an important point.  I would like to propose that this thread be added to the the standard "Welcome Newbies" message, or at least that it be made sticky so that new members are more likely to find it. 

Thanks for sharing this Data!

[andi]

The idea that we can work to clarify our thinking by working to clarify our writing is such an important point.  I would like to propose that this thread be added to the the standard "Welcome Newbies" message, or at least that it be made sticky so that new members are more likely to find it. 

I second that. I find this to be a fascinating subject, and also fun to practice, giving good results form the beginning.