The World of Doublespeak.

Originally from Racine, Wisconsin, William Lutz has been a professor of English at Rutgers University for the past fourteen years and was the editor of the “Quarterly Review of Doublespeak.” Through his book “Doublespeak: From Revenue Enhancement to Terminal Living” (1980), Lutz first awakened Americans to hoe people in important positions who were manipulating language. As chair of the National Council of Teachers of English’s committee on Public Doublespeak, Lutz has been a watchdog of public officials who use language to “mislead, distort, deceive, inflate, and circumvent, obfuscate.” Each year the committee presents the Orwell Awards, recognizing the most outrageous uses of public doublespeak in the worlds of government and business. Lutz’s most recent books are “The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone’s Saying Anymore.” (1997) and “Doublespeak Defined: Cut through the Bull**** and Get to the Point” (1999).

In the following essay, which first appeared in Christopher Ricks and Leonard Michaels’s anthology “State of the Language”(1990) Lutz examines which makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant attractive, or at least tolerable.” He identifies the various types of doublespeak and cautions us about the possible serious affects that doublespeak can have on our thinking.

Farmers no longer have cows, pigs, chicken, or other animals on their farms; according to the US Department of Agriculture, farmers have “grain - consuming animal units”(which ,according to the Tax Reform Act of 1996, are kept in “single – purpose agricultural structures ,”not pig pens and chicken coops). Attentive observers of the English language also learned recently that the multibillion dollar stock market crash of 19877 was simply a “ fourth quarter equity retreat” ; that airplanes don’t crash, they just have “uncontrolled contact with the ground”; that janitors are really “environmental technicians”; that it was a “diagnostic misadventure of a high magnitude” which caused the death of a partner in Philadelphia hospital, not medical malpractice; and that President Reagan was not really unconscious while he underwent minor surgery, he was just “in a non-decision –making form. ”In other words, doublespeak continues to spread as the official language of public discourse.

Doublespeak is a blanket term for language which pretends to communicate but doesn’t, language which makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant attractive, or at least tolerable. It is language, which avoids, shifts, or denies responsibility, language which is at variance with its real or its purported meaning. It is a language which conceals or prevents thought. Basic to doublespeak is incongruity, the incongruity between what is said, or left unsaid, and what really is: 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.

When shopping, we are asked to check our packages at the desk “for our convenience,” when it is not our convenience at all but the stores’ “program to reduce inventory shrinkage.” We see advertisements for “preowned”, “experienced”, or “previously distinguished” cars, for “genuine imitation leather”, “virgin vinyl”, or “real counterfeit diamonds.” Television offers not reruns but “encore telecasts” where the disadvantaged”,”economically no affluent” or “fiscal underachievers “live. Nonprofit organizations don’t make profit; they have “negative deficits” or “revenue excesses.” In the world of doublespeak dying is “terminal living.”

We know that toothbrush is still a toothbrush even if the advertisement on television calls it “home plaque removal instrument,” and even that “nutritional avoidance therapy” means a diet. But who would guess that a “volume – related production schedule adjustment” means closing an entire factory in the doublespeak of General Motors, or that “advanced downward adjustments” means budget cuts in the doublespeak of Caspar Weinberger, or that “energetic disassembly” means an explosion in a nuclear power plant in the doublespeak of the nuclear power industry?

The euphemism, an inoffensive or positive word or phrase designed to avoid a harsh, unpleasant, or distasteful reality, can at times be doublespeak. But the euphemism can be also a tactful word or phrase; for example, “passed away” functions not just to protect the feelings of another person but also to express our concern for another’s grief. This use of euphemism used to mislead or deceive, however, becomes doublespeak. In 1984, the US State Department announced that in its annual reports on the status of human rights in countries around the world it would no longer use the word “killing.” Instead, it would use the phrase “unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of life”. Thus the State Department avoids discussing government –sanctioned killings in countries that the United States supports and has certified as respecting human rights.

The Pentagon also avoids unpleasant realities when it refers to bombs and artillery shells which fall on civilian targets as “incontinent ordnance” to slip funding for the neutron bomb unnoticed into an appropriations bill by calling it an “enhanced radiation device.” And in 1971 the CIA gave us the most famous of examples of doublespeak when it used the phrase “eliminate with extreme prejudice” to refer to the execution of a suspected double agent in Vietnam.

Gobbledygook or bureaucratese is another kind of doublespeak. Such doublespeak is simply a matter of overwhelming the audience with technical, unfamiliar words. When asked why US forced lacked intelligence information on Grenada before they invaded the island in 1983, Admiral Wesley L. McDonald told reporters that “we were micromanaging Grenada intelligence –wise until about that time frame.”

The investigation into the Challenger disaster in 1986 revealed the gobbledygook and bureaucratese used by many involved in the shuttle program. When Jess Moore, NASA’s associate administrator, was asked if the performance of the shuttle program had improved with each launch or if it had remained the same, he answered, “We know more about the envelope we were operating under, and we have been pretty accurately staying in that. And so I would say the performance has not by design drastically improved. I think we have been able to characterize the performance more as a function of our launch experience as opposed to it improving as a function of time.”

In the doublespeak of the military, the 1983 invasion of Grenada was conducted not by the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines but by the “Caribbean Peace Keeping Forces.” But then according to the Pentagon it wasn’t an invasion, it was a “predawn vertical insertion.”

These last examples of doublespeak should make it clear that doublespeak is not the product of careless language or sloppy thinking. Indeed, serious doublespeak is the product of clear thinking and is carefully designed and constructed to appear to communicate but in fact to mislead. Thus, it is not a tax increase but “revenue enhancement”, “tax base broadening”, or “user fees”, so how can you complain about higher taxes? It is not acid rain, it’s just “poorly buffered precipitation”, so don’t worry about all those dead trees. That isn’t the Mafia in Atlantic City, those are just “members of a career-offender cartel”, so do not worry about the influence of organized crime in the city. The Supreme Court Justice wasn’t addicted to the painkilling drug he was taking, it’s just that the drug had simply “established interrelationship with the body, such that if the drug is removed precipitously, there is a reaction”, so do not worry that his decisions might have been influenced by his drug addiction. Serious doublespeak is highly strategic, and it breeds suspicion, cynicism, distrust, and, ultimately, hostility.

Task 5:

Answer the comprehension questions on the text.

1. How does the author characterize doublespeak?

2. How does Lutz relate euphemisms and doublespeak?

3. What other kind of doublespeak does Lutz name?

4. What does doublespeak breed?

5. Why, according to Lutz, does “doublespeak continue to spread as the official language of public discourse”?

6. In your opinion, is doublespeak as wide-spread today as it was when Lutz wrote his article? What examples can you provide to back up your opinion?

7. Why does Lutz believe that we must recognize doublespeak for what it is and voice our dissatisfaction with those who use it?

8. What is Lutz’s purpose in this essay – to inform, to express thoughts and feelings or to persuade? What in this essay leads you to this conclusion?

Task 6:

Copy out from the text the examples of doublespeak that you found most striking.

Task 7:

Another sphere where Doublespeak is widely used is Legal English. Why do you think lawyers favor Doublespeak?

Task 8:

The term “doublespeak” was preceded by the word “doublethink” created by George Orwell in his famous novel “1984”.Doublethink is defined as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

Other related terms are “doubletalk” and “newspeak”.

The tendency spread wider and led to the appearance of new kinds of “speaks”. See for justice illustrations from “travelspeak”.

What the Brochures Say and What They Mean

Deserted beaches - sharks

Fantastic marine paradise – beach

Flourishing tropical garden – jungle

Radio - there is no TV

Dancing by moonlight - there is no roof

Games room – half a back of cards

An optional excursion - escape

Fun –filled atmosphere – everything will have too much to drink

Cultural shows – bored local earning, some extra cash

Relaxed, informal décor – plastic table cloths.

Task 9:

Write an article to the newspaper named “Hypocrisy is a political virtue.”

Give arguments and counterarguments. Use the style of doublespeak.

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