Newspeak Newspeak everywhere

Is anyone else as perturbed as me by the Newspeak phenomenon that is the 'WAG?'

Footballers wives and girlfriends (in case any one didn't know) are being termed 'WAGs' by ALL the papers.

Some of the papers have even stopped using capital letters, deeming it to be a new and acceptable word.

I find this terrifying. What is the score with George Orwell? How the hell did he know this was going to happen??

?

Two things.

1. So what?

Whats it matter if there is this new word out there?

2. Isn't newspeak supposed to be a sort of double-speak? Like "war is peace, hate is love', etc?

2. Isn't newspeak supposed to be a sort of double-speak? Like "war is peace, hate is love', etc?

That's a concept that's probably more related to doublethink, which is the practice of holding to conflicting ideas (e.g. love is hate, war is peach) at the same time.
Newspeak is the language invented by the Party in 1984 to control thought by eliminating as many words as possible from the English language (Oldspeak); therefore reducing all thought to absolutes like good and bad, right and wrong, etc. This is presented as a way to control thought, by stating that the Party is "good," and the current enemy of the Party is "bad" with no neutral organizations: in other words, "if you're not with us, you're against us."

You are correct, however, in your statement that the OP's example is not a manifestation of Newspeak. I personally don't see any difference between that and, say, radar or scuba (both acronyms that were over time turned into words).

EDIT: blargh, it keeps adding an extra line in the middle of the paragraph, sorry about that.

[edit on 6/26/06 by ShreddedIce]

you noticed?

i'll send the thought police IMMEDIATELY so that you can be taken to the ministry of love.

actually, words need not be ELIMINATED, but rather, they can also be ALTERED; not the spelling or pronunciation, just the meaning.

Originally posted by ShreddedIce


You are correct, however, in your statement that the OP's example is not a manifestation of Newspeak. I personally don't see any difference between that and, say, radar or scuba (both acronyms that were over time turned into words).

OK, so my concept of what is Newspeak may be skewed, but I don't see it as being the same as those mentioned above.

We are talking about people, women, individuals - all being lumped together using a fabricated word that some over-paid, ill-educated media upstart deems suitable to use in a 'news' paper.

And it didn't just appear in one paper. It features in ALL British papers - tabloid or broadsheet.

Where did it come from? Who decided to enter this into the English Language with such enforced regularity? Why is our language being debased?

And in some ways, it does resemble Newspeak - Eliminating words from the human language and creating new ones.

You have a good point in it being lumping and dehumanizing, BUT, it seems to be a fad, more so than a secret plot, humans don't need a secret plot or puppet master to make then humiliate, debase, and debauch each other.

[edit on 27-6-2006 by Nygdan]