Good Article by Gordon Kirby

encouraged a gabbling
style of speech, at once staccato and monotonous. And this was exactly
what was aimed at. The intention was to make speech, and especially
speech on any subject not ideologically neutral, as nearly as possible
independent of consciousness. For the purposes of everyday life it was
no doubt necessary, or sometimes necessary, to reflect before speaking,
but a Party member called upon to make a political or ethical judgement
should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as automatically as a
machine gun spraying forth bullets. His training fitted him to do this,
the language gave him an almost foolproof instrument, and the texture of
the words, with their harsh sound and a certain wilful ugliness which
was in accord with the spirit of Ingsoc, assisted the process still
further.

So did the fact of having very few words to choose from. Relative to our
own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were
constantly being devised. Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other
languages in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every
year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice,
the smaller the temptation to take thought. Ultimately it was hoped to
make articulate speech issue from the larynx without involving the
higher brain centres at all. This aim was frankly admitted in the
Newspeak word duckspeak, meaning ?to quack like a duck?. Like various
other words in the B vocabulary, duckspeak was ambivalent in meaning.
Provided that the opinions which were quacked out were orthodox ones, it
implied nothing but praise, and when the Times referred to one of the
orators of the Party as a doubleplusgood duckspeaker it was paying a
warm and valued compliment.



The C vocabulary. The C vocabulary was supplementary to the others and
consisted entirely of scientific and technical terms. These resembled
the scientific terms in use today, and wer