Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise its actual meaning, such as euphemisms.
The word doublespeak was coined in the early 1950s. It is often incorrectly attributed to George Orwell and his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The word actually never appears in that novel; Orwell did, however, coin Newspeak, Oldspeak, duckspeak (speaking from the throat without thinking 'like a duck') and doublethink (holding "...simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them..."), and his novel made fashionable composite nouns with speak as the second element, which were previously unknown in English. It was therefore just a matter of time before someone came up with doublespeak. Doublespeak may be considered, in Orwell's lexicography, as the B vocabulary of Newspeak, words "deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them."
Whereas in the early days of the practice it was considered wrong to construct words to disguise meaning, this is now an accepted and established practice. There is a thriving industry in constructing words without explicit meaning but with particular connotations for new products or companies.
William Lutz, a professor at Rutgers University, has written several books about doublespeak and is the former editor of the double speak quartertly which examines ways that jargon has polluted the public vocabulary with phrases , words and usages of words designed to obscure the meaning of plain English.
"One facet of emotional control focuses on the excessive use of fear. Fear of the outside world (flying, opening mail, large crowds and tall buildings) and fear of enemies (evil-doers). We are asked to stay on full alert, while carrying on with life as usual. While knowledge is power, the withholding of information exacerbates this fear, as we walk through our days in a general sense of impending doom and distrust of those who look different or dress different from us. Total paranoia."
- "This is an administration that will not talk about how we gather intelligence, how we know what we're going to do, nor what our plans are. When we move, we will communicate with you in an appropriate manner. We're at war. There has been an act of war declared upon America by terrorists, and we will respond accordingly. And I appreciate very much the American people understanding that. As we plan, as we put our strategy into action, we will let you know when we think it's appropriate - not only to protect the lives of our servicemen and women, but to make sure our coalition has had proper time to be noticed, as well. But we're going to act." --President George W. Bush, 15 September 2001.
- "President George W. Bush said Sunday he is confident the nation will rebound from this week's terrorist attacks, and he urged Americans to go back to work on Monday knowing their government is determined to 'rid the world of evil-doers.'" --CNN, 16 September 2001.
- "I think America needs to know that we in government are on alert; that we recognize life around the White House or around the Congress is not normal, or is not the way it used to be, because we're very aware that people have conducted an act of war on our country; and that all of us urge our fellow Americans to go back to work and to work hard, but we must be on alert." --President George W. Bush, 19 September 2001.
- "In the months ahead, our patience will be one of our strengths -- patience with the long waits that will result from tighter security; patience and understanding that it will take time to achieve our goals; patience in all the sacrifices that may come." --President George W. Bush, 7 October 2001.
- "We must be steadfast. We must be resolved. We must not let the terrorists cause our nation to stop traveling, to stop buying, to stop living ordinary lives. We can be alert and we will be alert, but we must show them that they cannot terrorize the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. And we won't. We will not be terrorized, we will not be cowed." -- President George W. Bush, 17 October 2001.
"The Bush administration has made no apology for the need for information control, which includes both withholding and distorting information to make it acceptable, and limiting access to other (non-cult) sources of information.
- "The point to the networks -- and let me just say that I think the networks have been very responsible in the way that they have dealt with this -- my message to them was that it's not to me to judge news value of something like this, but it is to say that there's a national security concern about an unedited, 15 or 20-minute spew of anti-American hatred that ends in a call to go out and kill Americans. And I think that that was fully understood. We are still concerned about whether there might be some signaling in here, but I don't have anything more for you on that yet." -- Condoleezza Rice, October 15, 2001, on her request to the television networks to not broadcast al Qaeda/Osama bin Laden messages.
"Another more destructive form of deception today is the selling of fear. Fear is the most debilitating of all human emotions. A fearful person will do anything, say anything, accept anything, reject anything, if it makes him feel more secure for his own, his family's or his country's security and safety, whether it actually accomplishes it or not....
"It works like a charm. A fearful people are the easiest to govern. Their freedom and liberty can be taken away, and they can be convinced to believe that it was done for their own good - to give them security. They can be convinced to give up their liberty - voluntarily." --Gene E. Franchini, retired Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, 12 September 2003.
Franchini goes on to use USA PATRIOT ACT as an example.