it’s not newspeak, it might be euphemisms but the meaning of what is being said is alive and well, the major hallmark of newspeak is to limit the ability to convey ideas via conversation
the major hallmark of newspeak is to limit the ability to convey ideas via conversation
Slowly constricting the number of words that can be publicly spoken does work us toward that end. Folks who think they’re cleverly sidestepping the latest hurdle are only getting corralled deeper into the pen.
To be precise, newspeak does function by a direct reduction of vocabulary. Instead, newspeak works by expanding the number of meanings a single word can have, so that every sentence can be interpreted as supportive of the party, and the ‘grammatically correct’ meaning of the sentence is the supportive interpretation.
The closest approximation of newspeak in English is the sentence “That didn’t work, did it?” If you respond “Yes,” that can be interpreted as “Yes, you are correct, that didn’t work.” And if you reply “No,” that can’t be interpreted as “No, that didn’t work.”
That was the end goal of Newspeak, but it hadn’t been achieved. It was a slow process.
You could argue this is what they’re doing, training people to talk in a sterilised way. That it would become so normalised that anybody trying to speak normally would be dismissed as cringey or whatever. All to the benefit of advertisers.
Maybe that’s a huge leap, but I think that was the gist of what they meant.
avoiding certain words does not create newspeak, but rather the inability to use a limited set of words outside a given context, circumventing speech restrictions is arguably the least newspeak thing possible, as it basically makes any attempt at new speak impossible.
it’s not newspeak, it might be euphemisms but the meaning of what is being said is alive and well, the major hallmark of newspeak is to limit the ability to convey ideas via conversation
Slowly constricting the number of words that can be publicly spoken does work us toward that end. Folks who think they’re cleverly sidestepping the latest hurdle are only getting corralled deeper into the pen.
To be precise, newspeak does function by a direct reduction of vocabulary. Instead, newspeak works by expanding the number of meanings a single word can have, so that every sentence can be interpreted as supportive of the party, and the ‘grammatically correct’ meaning of the sentence is the supportive interpretation.
The closest approximation of newspeak in English is the sentence “That didn’t work, did it?” If you respond “Yes,” that can be interpreted as “Yes, you are correct, that didn’t work.” And if you reply “No,” that can’t be interpreted as “No, that didn’t work.”
Oz response: nah, yeah it worked mate
Simple math, gotta cancel out the negative with your own negative and then affirm the positive
Ok, so like how it limits the ability to convey ideas via conversation then?
Adapting language to bypass censorship is very much not Newspeak
It’s quite literally the opposite of Newspeak, an artificial language designed to constrict speech and prevent the spread of complex ideas.
Adapting language to bypass censorship is one of the dictionary definitions of Newspeak, a form of circumlocution.
That was the end goal of Newspeak, but it hadn’t been achieved. It was a slow process.
You could argue this is what they’re doing, training people to talk in a sterilised way. That it would become so normalised that anybody trying to speak normally would be dismissed as cringey or whatever. All to the benefit of advertisers.
Maybe that’s a huge leap, but I think that was the gist of what they meant.
avoiding certain words does not create newspeak, but rather the inability to use a limited set of words outside a given context, circumventing speech restrictions is arguably the least newspeak thing possible, as it basically makes any attempt at new speak impossible.