George Orwell demonstrated how writers and politicians use euphemisms, doublespeak, and other misconceptions to mislead their audience and hide their real agenda; he exposed politicians in his times and predicted future trends and practices in the English language usage. He expected the English language to deteriorate and individual thoughts and expression to be limited. His goal was to make people understand this practice and see through public speeches and political writings in an effort to reach the underlying truth and make individuals aware of the danger. Orwell wanted public readers and listeners to realize how politicians can change an ugly thing such as killing into a harmless action.
Politicians use language that is vague and lacks precision and detail in order to mislead the public. They rely heavily on euphemisms to make negative things seem positive, the unpleasant look attractive, and the bad turn into good. They use long meaningless sentences to conceal the truth and manipulate the reaction of the people to certain events or actions. Politicians shape ideas and limit thinking; they tell lies and use imprecise wording. Orwell’s message connects with politics in the English language beyond his days. There are several examples of these deceptive techniques used today; things that would make George Orwell turn in his grave.
Politicians accomplish this vagueness, inaccuracy, and misconception in their language by using euphemisms, doublespeaking, dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and meaningless words. A closer look at today’s terminology and wording of political policies and justification of war events illustrate Orwell’s message. Officials, instead of calling their new weapon a Titan II nuclear-armed, intercontinental, ballistic missile with a warhead 630 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, call it a very large potentially disruptive re-entry system. They mislead the public, and rename a neutron bomb an enhanced radiation device; to them it is not an invasion, it is a rescue mission.
The Essay on Make People Things Clinton
Bill Clinton says that the government must shape a 21 st century revolution. He carried on in his last state of the union address making all kinds of proposals ranging from healthcare, fighting crime and education to name a few. He says they must focus on the middle class, proposing a 350 billion dollar tax cut. But exactly how does he propose this shaping take place, and how will it effect our ...
Civilian casualties in a bombing are renamed collateral damage; also, to kill is changed to inflicting of casualties. By making these alterations and change in labeling, officials and journalists are trying to make death and destruction seem harmless. In Vietnam, there were many war terms used to make the war seem less violent. Massive bombing from 40,000 feet in the air was called a carpet raid, killing people with an airborne machine gun (from a helicopter) was to hose them, and rabbit shooting was killing civilians and military opponents. These expressions were used to facilitate the job for the soldiers and to easily overcome moral repulsion.
Political speeches and press also use euphemisms and doublethink to justify their actions regarding economy, external and internal political issues. For example, in Florida, orange growers planned to aim a satellite at Brazil’s orange groves to count how many trees they have producing oranges. Florida orange growers are complaining that Brazil’s crop forecasts are too inaccurate and are driving down the prices for Florida oranges, thus lowering their profits. Bob Crawford, director of Florida’s Dept of Citrus, explained this satellite spying as, “It’s creating database. I think it will bring us closer together.” This is the obvious excuse for the surveillance proposal; it is the doublethink he is using to conceal his dishonest actions. President Bush gave tax cuts, giving the multi-millionaire approximately $88,000 in tax returns, while the majority of the public with an average yearly income (such as a teacher or fireman) received from $350 to $500 in returns. Ari Fleischer (White House spokesman) announced that “The president does not believe in punishing people because they are successful,” the problem was that the less rich people needed the tax cuts more than the millionaires.
The Essay on Word War II
The book “PT 105” written by Dick Keresey was published in the year 1996 and was highly-acclaimed because it tells an exciting and accurate story about PT boats. Furthermore, the book sheds new light on the distinctive contributions made by these boats to the war effort in the South Pacific. During the Word War II, PT boats were considered as the fastest craft on the water in spite of its small ...
Today, politicians play with words and try to justify the Iraqi war and make it look more acceptable. The British government admits to have changed a work done by a Californian college student and lift it word by word; the text had been completely plagiarized. The British “upgraded” monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq to spying on foreign embassies in Iraq. Also, when Ibrahim al Marashi referred to Iraq as aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes, but the text was altered to supporting terrorist organizations in hostile regimes. When secretary of state, Colin Powell made a speech at the United Nations, his background “visuals” was a blue drapery trimmed by a row of flags. His background was originally a famous anti-war painting called “Guernica” by Pablo Picasso. The hiding of Picasso’s image of dying women, children, and animals, Stephane Dujaric explained, “We needed the right background that would work on television.”
Colin Powell himself was presenting the world a perfect metaphor by covering the human sufferings with the “collateral damage” of our nation. When three nuns a missionary were raped and killed at close range by soldiers in the Salvadoran frontiers, the government did not want to get into problems with the Salvadoran government. Instead, Secretary of State, Haig, implied that the nuns may have contributed to this fate and may have been the victims of an exchange of fire. He tried to use doublethink, but he greatly failed, considering it is quite hard to believe that nuns were firing machine guns. Also, some people perceive the so called ‘rescue missions’ for fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq as an invasion and cause of death to many civilians.
Orwell’s arguments in his essay Politics and the English Language in 1946 connect with future writings beyond his days. Orwell explained the basis of political writing and predicted a future trend that is carried out now. His insight and knowledge of the English language use and abuse can open our minds and help us see beyond the vagueness and camouflaged words that politicians use today. Hopefully it will help us hear and read the truth between their words, to maintain our individual thinking, and develop the English language and push it to higher levels.
The Essay on A Global Language: English Language
English is an international language spoken all over the world that was originally borrowed from the world. If English is used as a global language, there might be some advantages related to communication and business. However, there are also several disadvantages in terms of losing mother tongue and taking time and money. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages, so English should be made the ...
