Saying one thing but meaning another. But in a deceptive sort of way, not like double entendre.
The word kinda comes from the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described concepts known as doublethink and newspeak, though “doublespeak” is never actually used in the book.
Newspeak is how the government in that book redid the English language to remove words/grammar it didn’t approve of. Not from the book, but something of an example you might see jokingly used on the internet today is saying “unalive” as a euphemism for “die/kill” because it expresses a concept and avoids the implications.
Doublethink is the phenomenon of simultaneously accepting contradictory ideas. The government in the book needs to be able to convince people that the blatantly bad things they’re doing are actually good things. Think along the lines of peace through conquest, or the idea that the solution to gun violence is more guns.
Doublespeak is sort of a synthesis of these ideas. As a concept, I’d imagine that it long predates Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it’s about changing language or word choice to obfuscate truth or imply contradictory meaning. It’s like how calling someone “special” can be used to imply mental deficiency, how sugary cereal is “part of a balanced breakfast” when it’s one of the least healthy things a child could eat, or when racists say “All Lives Matter” to protect the racially discriminatory status quo that the Black Lives Matter movement was created to challenge.
Saying one thing but meaning another. But in a deceptive sort of way, not like double entendre.
The word kinda comes from the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described concepts known as doublethink and newspeak, though “doublespeak” is never actually used in the book.
Newspeak is how the government in that book redid the English language to remove words/grammar it didn’t approve of. Not from the book, but something of an example you might see jokingly used on the internet today is saying “unalive” as a euphemism for “die/kill” because it expresses a concept and avoids the implications.
Doublethink is the phenomenon of simultaneously accepting contradictory ideas. The government in the book needs to be able to convince people that the blatantly bad things they’re doing are actually good things. Think along the lines of peace through conquest, or the idea that the solution to gun violence is more guns.
Doublespeak is sort of a synthesis of these ideas. As a concept, I’d imagine that it long predates Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it’s about changing language or word choice to obfuscate truth or imply contradictory meaning. It’s like how calling someone “special” can be used to imply mental deficiency, how sugary cereal is “part of a balanced breakfast” when it’s one of the least healthy things a child could eat, or when racists say “All Lives Matter” to protect the racially discriminatory status quo that the Black Lives Matter movement was created to challenge.
Hope that helps contextualize it.