What Orwell saw

[bemildred]

T HAS LONG BEEN recognized that political language forms a linguistic category of its own, one in which words serve not as exact descriptive symbols but as empty formulae designed to push specific emotional buttons in the guileless listener.

The best description of this process is still George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language," written 60 years ago, in which he argued that any number of words used with easy profligacy by politicians had become essentially meaningless.

"The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice," he wrote, "have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another."

The word "fascism," he said, had no meaning "except insofar as it signifies 'something not desirable.' " Other words Orwell said were generally used dishonestly included "class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality."

LA Times