Monday, 18 April 2011

Doublespeak to Scarespeak

  Media and government use doublespeak to make certain things sound nicer than they are. For example neutralise is doublespeak for kill.  Nowadays people do not seem to always care about sparing people from gruesome details, instead people can over exaggerate situations to make them seem more horrible than they really are(Look after the business section for my ridiculous example on this). Words are used to hide people's true intentions, and the English language is essentially abused.
  In order to confuse people of their true intentions almost all governments use doublespeak. They try to get around the negative connotations of some words by using others that have had not had the time to develop the same connotations. The point is they are still doing the same things but they are just making sound like what they are doing is better. Some tour guide handbooks even instruct their employees to use doublespeak. Why is it so hard for people to just say what they mean and not try to tiptoe around their words in an attempt to please everyone?
  It's not just media and certain companies that use it, almost every teenager has used it as well. In our everyday lives we try to twist the words to suit ourselves. If someone is wearing something horrible we say it's interesting. If they ask for your opinion say your not fond of it, you don't have to be rude about it, and you don't have to hide your feelings. People would more easily understood if we just said what we mean.
  When we're not trying to spare someone from some fact we're trying to overwhelm them with terrifying facts. It's ridiculous how when talking about a subject most either under exaggerate or over exaggerate. You can over exaggerate anything to sound horrible, which some people try to do. If you have an event to explain that was already bad don't try to make it seem worse, just tell the truth plain and simple.
  Language is a wonderful tool, and gift, that should not be underestimated. As George Orwell once said if thought can affect language then language can affect thought (not in quotations because it is not a direct word for word quote). Something that can be used to affect many should be used properly, and not tampered with.

Business
Seven blogs behind. Also I need a challenge to do on the blog, not housework.

Math Morals
To prove how exaggerating can make anything sound bad here I will be making math sound bad. By the way I think math is extremely important, and I am just joking in the following passage.
  We have always been taught that two wrongs don't make a right, but in math two negatives can make a positive. When finding the difference between two negative numbers, if the second negative is lower than the first the difference will be positive. So according to math if we make a second wrong worse than our first one it is then considered a right thing to do. What kind of immoral subject is our school teaching?

1 comment:

  1. I think it's time for some home schooling for you so that I can remove you from these suspect situations with double speak and low moral math.

    Challenge:
    Write a summary of the earthquakes and subsequent tsunami that have battered Japan - BUT, use double speak to make it sound favorable.

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