Euphemisms

We are all being forced to get used to a brave new post-truth world. A Trump world of fake news. A world where blatant liesfor instance on the size of the crowd in Washington for the presidential inaugurationare 'alternative facts'.

Totalitarianism, militarism, fascism, colonialism and corporatism have all manipulated language and always will. George Orwell satirized this brilliantly in his novel Nineteen Eighty Four, first published in 1949, about a totalitarian state. Newspeak was the fictional state's controlled language designed to eliminate expressiveness and limit thought. In Newspeak, the word 'blackwhite', referred to the ability to believe that black is white, and to forget that you ever believed the contrary. A term totally pertinent today.

February 14, 2017