Through wordsmith.org I subscribe to A Word a Day for daily emails with a new word each day with a theme. Examples are words that are eponyms or words that sound dirty but aren’t. A few weeks ago it was words from George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four(published in 1949), that have become part of our language. I recall reading his dark novel in high school and thinking how very far into the future the year 1984 was, why, I’d be an old woman of 40 years. Today we are 34 years beyond that doomed year, and I have become a crone. Below is a photo of my worn copy of the book; I think Daughter used it when it was required reading for a class.
Here are five of Orwell’s words featured and defined for that week:
NEWSPEAK: Deliberately ambiguous or euphemistic language used for propaganda.
UNPERSON: A person regarded as nonexistent.
BIG BROTHER: An authoritarian person, organization, government, etc., that monitors or controls people.
DOUBLETHINK: An acceptance of two contradictory ideas at the same time.
OLDSPEAK: Normal English usage, as opposed to propagandist, euphemistic, or obfuscatory language.
My old paperback copy has this afterword by Erich Fromm and begins with this paragraph.
“George Orwell’s 1984 is the expression of a mood, and it is a warning. the mood it expresses is that of near despair about the future of man, and the warning is that unless the course of history changes, men all over the world will lose the most human qualities, will become soulless automatons, and will not even be aware of it.”
Fortunately, the soulless world of Winston Smith (main character from the novel) has not become reality. There have been dark days and some parallels can be drawn from that world and some events even leading up to 2018, but the course of history has surely changed. Here are some of my humble observations.
Let’s start with the most commonly quoted word from 1984, Big Brother. Some would think that we already have a Big Brother in the form of federal government imposing rules, regulations and laws and tracking us and strongly distrust the government. Internet and social media could be considered as Big Brother the way our smart phones track us as well as Facebook, Twitter, etc. that track our locations, likes, friends and shopping habits. And what of television? Can we escape that glowing eye from home or almost anyplace we go? And security cameras seem to be everywhere.
Newspeak is often used by those who want to put a certain spin on a statement or situation. Those in power appear to be the most skilled at newspeak.
The unperson could be those without a political voice whether by poverty, circumstances, gender, place of birth or sexual orientation. The Black Lives Matter movement quickly comes to my mind.
Our current President of the United States of America appears to be skilled in doublethink as he often says one thing and then acts in a completely different way to support, oppose or propose a policy. There ought to be an Orwellian word for the way he tweets.
Oldspeak was the language of truth and honesty. Lies were not treated as the norm and truth was not labeled as fake news.
Where did the inspiration for this post come from? Perhaps I just wanted to write one last 500-word essay on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and convince myself that a negative Utopia did not become a reality in 2018. Or has it?