Doublespeak (William Lutz)

I love reading. But I do not limit myself to works of fiction like Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, My Sister’s Keeper, The Alchemist, or A Walk to Remember. I’m also interested in periodicals, scientific or not. Now, I wonder if I have been reading doublespeak in these periodicals all along.

Truth be told, it was only when I took up English 1 as my Arts and Humanities course did I learn about doublespeak, thanks to William Lutz’s Doublespeak. The first time I read it, I was laughing from start to finish. It’s just funny how people can come up with a chain of words that really do not mean anything, or else, words that “evade, deceive, and mislead”. Really, how desperate can a certain language get?

This article was able to establish a refined definition of what doublespeak is by classifying it into four types. And to make the definition clearer, Lutz included examples where doublespeak is used and applied. I guess this is the strength of the article – his   characterization of this kind of language was elaborated more through given illustrations. His classifications are not misleading. It was also straight to the point.

And because this article happened to be a part of my reading kit, I already know when I’m being misled to believe in something that was not really true in the first place.