Perhaps this is a cultural thing, but doublespeak seems to be prevalent even in casual conversation
Every time I turn to politics. Our ex justice minister once said:
Surveillance is freedom
I’m not kidding. Word for word, that’s what he said.
Which country? Orwell?
Edit: NewZealand apparently
Just going to leave this here…
Denmark actually. It’s a couple of years ago he said it.
I wouldn’t know. I take most things that people say at face-value.
I don’t have the time or energy to interpret double-meanings. Say what you mean & mean what you say.
People get mad at you when you do that. I’m actually shocked at how many do.
Yeah, they might get mad, but that’s on them. If they said what they actually meant, things would go a lot smoother.
Communicate clearly instead of expecting me to do codebreaking.
Once you achieve a certain level of not giving a fuck, just repeat their statement back to then in plain language and they will usually either storm off, freeing you from the conversation, or they will get the point, freeing you from at least the tedious part of the conversation.
This is my favorite way to deal with management.
So you want me to disable a safety feature to help speed up production?
I agree; so strange what we value with words so often differ with what we value with our action or inaction.
How do you feel about people who communicate through movie quotes?
It only works if the other party clearly understands the reference.
Know your audience.
Any examples in particular?
Yeah, any example will do.
That was more for you to provide an example so we know exactly what you are looking for?
Whether intentional or not their reply was hilarious.
And OP just read 1984.
/post [mic drop]
Its going to get funnier the longer he avoids answering lol. In my mind, he could be referring to anything from double speak (doublethink), double entendres, puns, double meanings, etc. He needs to show some of his thinking so we can answer intelligently
1984 was doublethink, not doublespeak
“War is Peace” is doublespeak; an inherent contradiction. Anybody can say it and still see the contradiction and believe that it isn’t true. Doublethink is the internalization of that doublespeak. A Party member says it and sees no contradiction. Deep in their hearts, they understand that to be in a never ending war is to experience neverending peace.
All that to say that doublespeak was certainly a thing in the novel, as it labours on the distinction between doublespeak and doublethink.
Maybe OP didn’t just read it then. Maybe, like me, they read it years ago and misremembered
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(do you have) any examples in particular?
(are you looking for) any examples in particular?
I assume you mean just subtly mentioning something without outright saying it. That’s just a social skill, since some things are better said that way.
On the other hand, equivocation is the bastion of cowards and simpletons.
Whilst this has some truth to it, it is a gross oversimplification
Then, what do you mean with double speak
That 2x thing you can choose in a YouTube video.
Maybe it’s when you speak so fast that it sounds like you’re saying two words at once? 😄
I call that being high as fuck
I assume they mean like that one barenaked ladies song where they sing real fast but it isn’t rapping.
All the time.
Discourse analysis ruined my life.In special, the sort of doublespeak where someone lists something as a bonus of whatever the person defends, but as a malus for what he doesn’t like. Often through different and partially overlapping words, such as one program being “traditional and tested” and another “archaic and outdated”. Or one politician being “in sync with the voters” and another being “a demagogue”.
However on the internet I feel like doublespeak is becoming less and less of a concern, because willingful stupidity is often more efficient, as it capitalises on Brandolini’s Law.
In special, the sort of doublespeak where someone lists something as a bonus of whatever the person defends, but as a malus for what he doesn’t like. Often through different and partially overlapping words, such as one program being “traditional and tested” and another “archaic and outdated”. Or one politician being “in sync with the voters” and another being “a demagogue”.
Oh yeah, I hate that. I find it sad that there’s a market for that kind of content. It’s not the only way, you could just say the program is 15 years old, or the politician appeals to a much larger fraction of voters than whatever specific naive measure would suggest they should.
It’s not the only way, you could just say the program is 15 years old, or the politician appeals to a much larger fraction of voters than whatever specific naive measure would suggest they should.
That requires us* to focus on the objective matters. We can’t do that. We need to wallow in all that precious, oh so precious, subjectivity. But we can’t show it, because then we can’t claim “it’s facts”, and we’re opening room for disagreement.
In other words this kind of doublespeak is backed by another type of doublespeak: disguising the subjective as objective. You see the same underlying phenomenon behind the usage of the word “toxic”.
*by “we” I mean “people in general”, not necessarily you and me.
I suspect a lot of people make the mistake of seeking out analysis, but not stopping to consider if they actually understand more after reading it, as well. They figure because they spent half an hour reading they must now be smarter, when that’s not necessarily the case, and from a writer’s perspective that gives an opportunity to make money by producing giant quantities of boilerplate text. Or at least did, before GPT and friends showed up.
In other words this kind of doublespeak is backed by another type of doublespeak: disguising the subjective as objective. You see the same underlying phenomenon behind the usage of the word “toxic”.
Can you give an example? The first thing that comes to mind is “toxic masculinity”, which is more of a “set expression”, and then “toxicity” in online spaces which in context refers to an abundance of hostility or negative emotional content.
I suspect a lot of people make the mistake of seeking out analysis, but not stopping to consider if they actually understand more after reading it, as well.
Yup. Or stopping to analyse the analysis, it isn’t just because someone analysed it that it’ll be necessarily worth a damn.
from a writer’s perspective that gives an opportunity to make money by producing giant quantities of boilerplate text.
Similarities with “self-help” are not a mere coincidence.
Can you give an example?
Sure. Made up and a bit forced, but it should be typical enough to highlight what I mean:
- [Alice] Bob, I think that you should cut your hair.
- [Bob] Alice, this is toxic. I didn’t ask your opinion!
Bob clearly doesn’t like uncalled advice. That’s fine for me, I don’t like it either, and it would be also fine if Bob said “hey Alice, I don’t like this, stahp”. But that’s still someone (a subject) not liking something - in other words a subjective matter. It’s an opinion and it should be treated as such.
And, yet by labelling the behaviour “toxic”, Bob makes it look like it’s something about the object (the behaviour) thus objective, something intrinsically true, shielded against the criticism that an opinion would get. But it’s still an opinion, so you can’t even criticise it as a true/false statement - you can’t “prove” an opinion.
Note that even the description that you’ve provided hints this duplicity: hostility is objective, but “negative emotional” is subjective.
(I didn’t include “toxic masculinity” because I didn’t really think about it. Plus as you said it’s a fixed expression, those tend to vary in meaning too much from the component words. )
Note that even the description that you’ve provided hints this duplicity: hostility is objective, but “negative emotional” is subjective.
That’s interesting. My first reaction was to think it’s more the other way around. Hostility is based on intention which is in fact un-knowable unless you make assumptions about how patient an adversary is, whereas emotional content has simple litmus tests like looking at frequency of certain words. But, hostility can be seen as game theoretical and mathematical, whereas emotional content comes from an older part of our brain and is only partially shared between people, so I see what you mean. I guess sometimes more subjective things can actually be more measurable, counterintuitively.
I wonder if there’s a good example of a space that’s toxic, as measured by the effect on participant’s mental health scores, but only to some participants. I’m conjecturing that there is not, that at least 80% of the population will experience it the same way, but I could be wrong. I suppose even a very stressful interaction could make someone feel less lonely.
Hostility is objective because it’s behaviour. I were to punch or insult someone, and the definition of hostility includes those things (it should, right?), then I couldn’t bullshit “it’s a matter of opinion if I was hostile or not” - it’s a fact. However the emotional impact of the punch/insult would depend on the target of that hostility.
I guess sometimes more subjective things can actually be more measurable, counterintuitively.
Sometimes they do. Specially when it’s for multiple subjects - human experiences don’t overlap completely, but they do overlap a bit. But for that we need to acknowledge that they’re subjective.
I wonder if there’s a good example of a space that’s toxic, as measured by the effect on participant’s mental health scores, but only to some participants.
Spaces that target specific groups. Specially vulnerable groups based on sexuality, race, etc.
For example. If I were to crack gay jokes nonstop, most people would at most feel umconfortable… unless they’re homo or bisexual, for them there’s a heavy (and negative) emotional impact. Same deal with jokes targetting people based on race, gender, etc.
What’s that “Kids Online Safety Bill” thing in the USA right now?
Where I live we call it “Minnesota nice”. As a transplant I can’t speak it well, so I have no idea what anyone thinks of me. It’s pretty frustrating.
Every time I’ve talked to any manager or supervisor I’ve ever had.
I work for/with a religiously-affiliated charitable organization, so doublespeak is pretty constant. Worse, not only do people use it but they also police the speech of those around them.
Not being hyperbolic, but almost every single time I have to speak with or am spoken to by a manager/GM at work. HR at all large companies I have ever worked for as well.
It’s ubiquitous.
Thanks for this!
Np!
There’s a couple different variants, and OP is most likely talking about 1984, but the core idea is pretty much the same
William Lutz is an American linguist who specializes in the use of plain language and the avoidance of doublespeak (deceptive language). He wrote a famous essay “The World of Doublespeak” on this subject as well as the book Doublespeak, which described the four different types of doublespeak (euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated language) and the social dangers of doublespeak.
Don’t forget the first summary:
“Doublespeak is the language of non-responsibility, carefully constructed to appear to communicate when it fact it doesn’t”
My understanding was it was a conceptually-poor language that artificially constrained one’s cognitive faculties through the nexus of a limited language/vocabulary emphasizing economy of expression. Sort of like a programming language with very few keywords and only ones that were absolutely necessary to receive and nominally participate in a minimal discourse.
Edit: I think this is actually Newspeak I’m contemplating as opposed to doublespeak. Doublespeak seems to refer to intentionally ambiguous language that obfuscates meaning and emotional content and usually for a political purpose. Like calling unintentional war victims “collateral damage” to reduce the bad publicity from one’s war efforts. The wrongfully-dead victims are hidden behind what sounds like oblique accounting or financial jargon.
Are you thinking of newspeak?
Whoops, lol. Is he talking about, like, George Bush or something. I’m so lost right now and he hasn’t provided a single example to work from
If you haven’t, take some time to read 1984. It’s a fairly easy read and this thread will make a lot more sense. Also, there’s a reason it’s a timeless classic and referred to so often - Orwell hit on a lot of prevalent themes authoritarians like to use. Once you know how to identify them, it’s easy to see when someone is using something like double speak (consciously or subconsciously)
well the two aren’t necessarily exclusive. A speech pattern that obfuscates has many uses. But I think you’re conflating doublespeech and doublethink a bit.
(Fun fact: the term Doublespeak / speech is never actually used in 1984. Like, at all. It gets thrown in because of the doublethink concept, and the fact that everyone weaselwords, but it’s not actually used in the book.)
Saying one thing but meaning another. But in a deceptive sort of way, not like double entendre.
The word kinda comes from the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described concepts known as doublethink and newspeak, though “doublespeak” is never actually used in the book.
Newspeak is how the government in that book redid the English language to remove words/grammar it didn’t approve of. Not from the book, but something of an example you might see jokingly used on the internet today is saying “unalive” as a euphemism for “die/kill” because it expresses a concept and avoids the implications.
Doublethink is the phenomenon of simultaneously accepting contradictory ideas. The government in the book needs to be able to convince people that the blatantly bad things they’re doing are actually good things. Think along the lines of peace through conquest, or the idea that the solution to gun violence is more guns.
Doublespeak is sort of a synthesis of these ideas. As a concept, I’d imagine that it long predates Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it’s about changing language or word choice to obfuscate truth or imply contradictory meaning. It’s like how calling someone “special” can be used to imply mental deficiency, how sugary cereal is “part of a balanced breakfast” when it’s one of the least healthy things a child could eat, or when racists say “All Lives Matter” to protect the racially discriminatory status quo that the Black Lives Matter movement was created to challenge.
Hope that helps contextualize it.
In the 1984-sense, daily at work.
All the time at work lol
