How Language Is Used to Deceive You

How Language Is Used to Deceive You: Politics, Business, World Events, Sports, and Law (1989)

Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning (for example, naming a state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth. Doublespeak is most closely associated with political language.

Doublespeak might also have some connections with contemporary theories as well. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky note in their book that Orwellian Doublespeak is an important component of the manipulation of the English language in American media, through a process called 'dichotomization'; a component of media propaganda involving 'deeply embedded double standards in the reporting of news'. For example, the use of state funds by the poor and financially needy is commonly referred to as 'social welfare' or 'handouts', which the 'coddled' poor 'take advantage of'. These terms, however, do not apply to other beneficiaries of government spending such as tax incentives and military spending.

William D. Lutz, serves as the third chairman of the Doublespeak Committee since 1975 to the present. In 1989, both his own book Doublespeak and, under his editorship, the committee's third book, Beyond Nineteen Eighty-Four, were published. Lutz was also the former editor of the now defunct Quarterly Review of Doublespeak, which examines ways that jargon has polluted the public vocabulary with phrases, words and usages of words designed to obscure the meaning of plain English. His book, Beyond Nineteen Eighty-Four, consists of 220 pages and eighteen articles contributed by long-time Committee members and others whose body of work has made important contributions to understandings about language, as well as a bibliography of 103 sources on doublespeak.

Lutz is one of the main contributors to the committee as well as promoting the term "doublespeak" to a mass audience so as to inform them of the deceptive qualities that doublespeak contains.