Throughout history language has been used as a medium of communication for people. Over time the English Language is constantly evolving and with that comes the decay of the language itself. This decline causes people’s lives and reality to be altered. The English Language is experiencing this decline due to censorship, doublespeak, and carelessness with words in general. Censorship is one of the leading causes of the decline of the English Language. Censorship is caused by over sensitivity to words. Likewise in the essay Watch What You Say, Gene Shalit said, “Americans has become thin-skinned, sensitive, yellow-bellied scaredy-cats whose emotions are so dainty that at any random word or phrase may cause them to swoon, collapse into tears,
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The words are removed from their reality. If the wrong people get their hands on this it could be detrimental to future generations. Censorship narrows the range of thought. This censorship is very similar to the language Newspeak in the novel 1984 written by George Orwell. Newspeak was created to narrow the range of thought by removing words--the same way as censorship affects the people. “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible”(Source F). The destruction or censorship of words lead to the decline of the English Language because it censors ideas. Language is the medium in which people communicate ideas and when that medium is limited to only certain words people’s understanding and ideas are …show more content…
In Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language, he talks about how political jargon has caused a decline in the English Language. He states, “Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it” Jargon becomes dangerous especially in politics. It causes misinformation to be spread due to a lack of information on the word itself. This lack of information leads to political manipulation by the people in power. Gobbledygook and inflated language also act similarly in the way that they blur the language. Both of these concepts use more than one word to describe a concept that could be described in one. Lutz states, “To fourth kind of doublespeak is inflated language that is designed to make the ordinary seem extraordinary…...to give an air of importance to people, situations, or things that would not normally be considered important” (Source G). Someone who is a bus driver might be referred to as urban transportation specialist. This sort of language is confusing for the listener because it is so
The words are removed from their reality. If the wrong people get their hands on this it could be detrimental to future generations. Censorship narrows the range of thought. This censorship is very similar to the language Newspeak in the novel 1984 written by George Orwell. Newspeak was created to narrow the range of thought by removing words--the same way as censorship affects the people. “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible”(Source F). The destruction or censorship of words lead to the decline of the English Language because it censors ideas. Language is the medium in which people communicate ideas and when that medium is limited to only certain words people’s understanding and ideas are …show more content…
In Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language, he talks about how political jargon has caused a decline in the English Language. He states, “Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it” Jargon becomes dangerous especially in politics. It causes misinformation to be spread due to a lack of information on the word itself. This lack of information leads to political manipulation by the people in power. Gobbledygook and inflated language also act similarly in the way that they blur the language. Both of these concepts use more than one word to describe a concept that could be described in one. Lutz states, “To fourth kind of doublespeak is inflated language that is designed to make the ordinary seem extraordinary…...to give an air of importance to people, situations, or things that would not normally be considered important” (Source G). Someone who is a bus driver might be referred to as urban transportation specialist. This sort of language is confusing for the listener because it is so