Doublespeak (Rebel Reads Book 1)

by William Lutz

Doublespeak is language that pretends to communicate but really doesn’t. It is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable. Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language that conceals or prevents thought; rather than extending thought, doublespeak limits it.

Doublespeak is not a matter of subjects and verbs agreeing; it is a matter of words and facts agreeing. Basic to doublespeak is incongruity, the incongruity between what is said or left unsaid, and what really is. It is the incongruity between the word and the referent, between seem and be, between the essential function of language—communication—and what doublespeak does—mislead, distort, deceive, inflate, circumvent, obfuscate.

Who is saying what to whom, under what conditions and circumstances, with what intent, and with what results?

The first is the euphemism, an inoffensive or positive word or phrase used to avoid a harsh, unpleasant, or distasteful reality.

The Pentagon, too, avoids discussing unpleasant realities when it refers to bombs and artillery shells that fall on civilian targets as “incontinent ordnance.”

in 1977 the Pentagon tried to slip funding for the neutron bomb unnoticed into an appropriations bill by calling it a “radiation enhancement device.”

second kind of doublespeak is jargon, the specialized language of a trade, profession, or similar group, such as that used by doctors, lawyers, engineers, educators, or car mechanics. Jargon can serve an important and useful function. Within a group, jargon functions as a kind of verbal shorthand that allows members of the group to communicate with each other clearly, efficiently, and quickly. Indeed, it is a mark of membership in the group to be able to use and understand the group’s jargon.

Jargon as doublespeak often makes the simple appear complex, the ordinary profound, the obvious insightful. In this sense it is used not to express but impress. With such doublespeak, the act of smelling something becomes “organoleptic analysis,” glass becomes “fused silicate,” a crack in a metal support beam becomes a “discontinuity,” conservative economic policies become “distributionally conservative notions.”

an “involuntary conversion” of property when discussing the loss or destruction of property through theft, accident, or condemnation.

third kind of doublespeak is gobbledygook or bureaucratese. Basically, such doublespeak is simply a matter of piling on words, of overwhelming the audience with words, the bigger the words and the longer the sentences the better.

The fourth kind of doublespeak is inflated language that is designed to make the ordinary seem extraordinary; to make everyday things seem impressive; to give an air of importance to people, situations, or things that would not normally be considered important; to make the simple seem complex.

when Chrysler “initiates a career alternative enhancement program,” it is really laying off five thousand workers; or that “negative patient care outcome” means the patient died; or that “rapid oxidation” means a fire in a nuclear power plant.

In Pentagon doublespeak, “pre-emptive counterattack” means that American forces attacked first;

“engaged the enemy on all sides” means American troops were ambushed;

A pencil sharpener was an “Appliance for milling wooden dowels up to 10 millimeters in diameter,”

typewriter was an “Instrument for recording test data with rotating roller.”

In the world of Nazi Germany, nonprofessional prostitutes were called “persons with varied sexual relationships”; “protective custody” was the very opposite of protective; “Winter Relief’ was a compulsory tax presented as a voluntary charity; and a “straightening of the front” was a retreat, while serious difficulties became “bottlenecks.” Minister of Information (the very title is doublespeak) Josef Goebbels spoke in all seriousness of “simple pomp” and “the liberalization of the freedom of the press.”

Nazi doublespeak reached its peak when dealing with the “Final Solution,” a phrase that is itself the ultimate in doublespeak. The notice, “The Jew X.Y. lived here,” posted on a door, meant the occupant had been “deported,” that is, killed. When mail was returned stamped “Addressee has moved away,” it meant the person had been “deported.” “Resettlement” also meant deportation, while “work camp” meant concentration camp or incinerator, “action” meant massacre, “Special Action Groups” were army units that conducted mass murder, “selection” meant gassing, and “shot while trying to escape” meant deliberately killed in a concentration camp.

Newspeak, the official state language in the world of 1984, was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of human thought, to make only “correct” thought possible and all other modes of thought impossible. It was, in short, a language designed to create a reality that the state wanted.

It’s not an economic recession but, according to the Reagan Administration, a “period of accelerated negative growth” or simply “negative economic growth.” There’s no such thing as acid rain; according to the Environmental Protection Agency, it’s just “poorly buffered precipitation” or, more impressively, “atmospheric deposition of anthropogenetically-derived acidic substances.” And those aren’t gangsters, mobsters, the Mafia, or La Cosa Nostra in Atlantic City; according to the “New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement” (a doublespeak title that avoids the use of that dreaded word, “gambling”) they’re just “members of a career-offender cartel.”

During the Vietnam War the American public learned that it was an “incursion” into Cambodia, not an invasion; a “protective reaction strike” or “a limited duration protective reaction strike” or “air support,” not bombing.

In today’s armed forces it’s not a shovel but a “combat emplacement evacuator,” not a bullet hole but a “ballistically induced aperture in the subcutaneous environment.”

In its letter, Ford said that the rear axle bearings of the cars “can deteriorate” and went on to say “Continued driving with a failed bearing could result in disengagement of the axle shaft and adversely affect vehicle control.” This is the language of nonresponsibility. What are “mechanical deficiencies”—poor design, bad workmanship? The rear axle bearings “can deteriorate,” but will they deteriorate? If they do deteriorate, what causes the deterioration? Note that “continued driving” is the subject of the sentence, which suggests that it is not Ford’s poor manufacturing that is at fault but the driver who insists on driving the defective car. Note, too, the expression “failed bearing,” which implies that the bearing failed, not Ford. Finally, the phrase “adversely affect vehicle control” means simply that, because of the mechanical defect, the driver could lose control of the car and get killed.