Are we entering an era of "Newspeak"?

George Orwell, in his classic novel "1984," described a system of language called "Newspeak." With Newspeak, the English language was whittled down to have fewer and fewer words. For example, instead of "good and bad," there was only "good" and "ungood." Rather than having a whole string of words like "excellent," "splendid," "superb," and so on, all these words were eliminated and replaced with simply "plusgood" (meaning "very good") or "doubleplusgood," ("very, very good). You get the idea. Grammar, vocabulary, adjectives...all were reduced to as great an extent as possible. The government's aim was to obliterate words so a dictionary would shrink from a fat volume to something as slim as a short paperback.

The idea behind all this was to restrict human thought. With an increasingly simplistic language, people gradually came to lack the vocabulary to even entertain complex, intelligent thought at all. All their thoughts became black-and-white, very rudimentary. This prevented unorthodox thought from even arising, and made the people easier for the evil government to control.

It strikes me that our society is undergoing a similar "verbal holocaust" today. People read less and less. Long passages are all "TL,DR." Attention deficit is not merely tolerated -- it is celebrated! Kids use text messages and "l33t speak." "Memes" from sites like 4chan replace complex vocabulary and grammar. Short words like "epic," "win," "get." or "fail" replace more complex and nuanced vocabulary. Grammar is mutilated to result in constructions like, "I can has cheezburger nao?" Spelling goes out the window. Everything is expressed through pictures and a vocabulary of 150 words or so.

It strikes me that this has the potential to be very dangerous, to wreck havoc with complex thought, and to make people easier to manipulate -- just like Orwell's Newspeak. One wonders whether an actual conspiracy to restrict thought is afoot, or whether people are simply doing it to themselves mindlessly. Either way, it is a worrisome trend that opens people up to the possibility of control and manipulation.

No. That is 1337 speak. That is not newspeak really. It's just nerd-speak. It's nothing close to newspeak... don't worry. The nerd rhetoric won't bring the end of the world.

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
No. That is 1337 speak. That is not newspeak really. It's just nerd-speak. It's nothing close to newspeak... don't worry. The nerd rhetoric won't bring the end of the world.

It's spreading beyond a few nerds to become the default means of communication for the rising generation.

Not saying it will bring the end of the world. But will it help to create a more simple-minded, easy-to-manipulate populace? I don't think this is an out-of-place question to ask.

reply to post by silent thunder


I see. The general population may end up using nerd rhetoric. They've already started speaking in abbreviated speak for text messages. I still don't think it'll be newspeak. I just think that they'll be speaking text-language.

well i can't help but to think of the new Shell comercials. have you seen these? it begins by stating that Shell is "up to the challenge" of getting "difficult oil" that is "trapped" in the earth. Well! that oil is trapped! we better get it out! they sound like they are doing the earth a great service in this comercial. funny that, it would not be taken well if the word rape was changed to "difficult intercourse".

Nerdspeak is supposed to be ironic, making fun of people who have a limited grasp on the english language.

But in my own experience, the internet is definitely making me more stupid. I pride myself on attempting to spell perfectly. However, if you spend a large amount of time on the net, gradually you will start to unlearn how to spell and construct sentences, if you spend enough time around sites that enough kids use that is.

Words I don't use so often, I find myself not able to remember exactly how to spell them, purely because I see every day a huge variety of typos and errors, it becomes the norm. I find myself reaching for the www.dictionary.com more and more often, and I'm definitely not old enough to be having memory problems.

As for becoming dumbed down, well I see it as a chicken and egg situation. People who are prone to using nerd/elite/txt speak a lot may not be the sharpest tools in the set to begin with. The real problem is when this sort of communication is championed as being trendy.

In the 80s, being cool was cool, nowdays being dumb is cool. Lets all just look for a fallout shelter and wait for it to blow over

I tend to agree with the OP. The general public seems to have less and less grammatical skill as time goes on. Even the basics of proper spelling, seems to be falling away. Also in terms of Newspeak, if you look at some of the terminology and "Politically correct" language used by the Gov and large corporations, it shows a distinct pattern of candy coating negative situations. One of my current favourites is "Corporate right sizing", used when large corp's have to fire large groups of workers.

Very interesting thread. I was just thinking about this the other day. I am being LOLed to death lately. I'm only 23 and have some trouble keeping up with the youngsters acronyms. I knew the nerds would some day rule us all!! It is now their time, repent bullies! Don't forget 'meh' made it into the dictionary. In all seriousness languages either evolve or die out. While I am not a big fan of the 1337 speak stuff, I am not to worried about it either.

Originally posted by silent thunder
George Orwell, in his classic novel "1984," described a system of language called "Newspeak."

For the last 8 years, we have been listening to bushspeak. In this language, the small element of government (and three-letter-agencies) that are responsible for 9/11 are now known as A-rab Terrists. Other bushspeak terms are "war-is-peace", "patriots are terrists" and "Fauxnewsspeak is the gospel"

Note that bushspeak and washingtonspeak are two elements of the same set. A washingtonspeak term that goes back many decades exclaims that "our foreign policy serves our 'interests' ". Note that most of the people of the world define our foreign policy as "death squads, murder and disappearances, torture, rape, robbery and theft". I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder......

reply to post by silent thunder


this has been going on since the inception of the television