Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase – some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse – into the dustbin where it belongs.[1]
Orwell, ‘Politics
and the English Language’ (1946)
[1] George Orwell, Why I Write (Toronto: Penguin Books, 2005), p. 120. Orwell adds “Fascism”
to the list, too (p. 109).
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