how often do you encounter doublespeak?

3 years ago by 000999 to c/asklemmy

Perhaps this is a cultural thing, but doublespeak seems to be prevalent even in casual conversation

VonReposti 49 points 3 years ago

Every time I turn to politics. Our ex justice minister once said:

Surveillance is freedom

I'm not kidding. Word for word, that's what he said.

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u202307011927 9 points 3 years ago path: 0 3311145 3316992, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 2
DarkDarkHouse 13 points 3 years ago

Just going to leave this here…

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VonReposti 6 points 3 years ago

Denmark actually. It's a couple of years ago he said it.

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SharkEatingBreakfast 42 points 3 years ago

I wouldn't know. I take most things that people say at face-value.

I don't have the time or energy to interpret double-meanings. Say what you mean & mean what you say.

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Maeve 18 points 3 years ago

People get mad at you when you do that. I’m actually shocked at how many do.

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SharkEatingBreakfast 22 points 3 years ago

Yeah, they might get mad, but that's on them. If they said what they actually meant, things would go a lot smoother.

Communicate clearly instead of expecting me to do codebreaking.

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socsa 10 points 3 years ago

Once you achieve a certain level of not giving a fuck, just repeat their statement back to then in plain language and they will usually either storm off, freeing you from the conversation, or they will get the point, freeing you from at least the tedious part of the conversation.

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nik282000 3 points 3 years ago

This is my favorite way to deal with management.

So you want me to disable a safety feature to help speed up production?

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Maeve 6 points 3 years ago

I agree; so strange what we value with words so often differ with what we value with our action or inaction.

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slurpeesoforion 2 points 3 years ago

How do you feel about people who communicate through movie quotes?

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SharkEatingBreakfast 2 points 3 years ago

It only works if the other party clearly understands the reference.

Know your audience.

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cheese_greater 28 points 3 years ago

Any examples in particular?

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000999 11 points 3 years ago

Yeah, any example will do.

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cheese_greater 42 points 3 years ago

That was more for you to provide an example so we know exactly what you are looking for?

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can 41 points 3 years ago

Whether intentional or not their reply was hilarious.

And OP just read 1984.

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cheese_greater 11 points 3 years ago

/post [mic drop]

Its going to get funnier the longer he avoids answering lol. In my mind, he could be referring to anything from double speak (doublethink), double entendres, puns, double meanings, etc. He needs to show some of his thinking so we can answer intelligently

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turkalino 3 points 3 years ago

1984 was doublethink, not doublespeak

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cheese_greater 0 points 3 years ago
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u202307011927 2 points 3 years ago
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can 1 point 3 years ago

(do you have) any examples in particular?

(are you looking for) any examples in particular?

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mojo 22 points 3 years ago

I assume you mean just subtly mentioning something without outright saying it. That's just a social skill, since some things are better said that way.

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socsa 4 points 3 years ago

On the other hand, equivocation is the bastion of cowards and simpletons.

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000999 -12 points 3 years ago

Whilst this has some truth to it, it is a gross oversimplification

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redballooon 20 points 3 years ago

Then, what do you mean with double speak

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chairman 14 points 3 years ago

That 2x thing you can choose in a YouTube video.

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u202307011927 4 points 3 years ago

Maybe it's when you speak so fast that it sounds like you're saying two words at once? 😄

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mojo 1 point 3 years ago

I call that being high as fuck

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socsa 2 points 3 years ago

I assume they mean like that one barenaked ladies song where they sing real fast but it isn't rapping.

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lvxferre 20 points 3 years ago

All the time. Discourse analysis ruined my life.

In special, the sort of doublespeak where someone lists something as a bonus of whatever the person defends, but as a malus for what he doesn't like. Often through different and partially overlapping words, such as one program being "traditional and tested" and another "archaic and outdated". Or one politician being "in sync with the voters" and another being "a demagogue".

However on the internet I feel like doublespeak is becoming less and less of a concern, because willingful stupidity is often more efficient, as it capitalises on Brandolini's Law.

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CanadaPlus 5 points 3 years ago

In special, the sort of doublespeak where someone lists something as a bonus of whatever the person defends, but as a malus for what he doesn’t like. Often through different and partially overlapping words, such as one program being “traditional and tested” and another “archaic and outdated”. Or one politician being “in sync with the voters” and another being “a demagogue”.

Oh yeah, I hate that. I find it sad that there's a market for that kind of content. It's not the only way, you could just say the program is 15 years old, or the politician appeals to a much larger fraction of voters than whatever specific naive measure would suggest they should.

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lvxferre 5 points 3 years ago

It’s not the only way, you could just say the program is 15 years old, or the politician appeals to a much larger fraction of voters than whatever specific naive measure would suggest they should.

That requires us* to focus on the objective matters. We can't do that. We need to wallow in all that precious, oh so precious, subjectivity. But we can't show it, because then we can't claim "it's facts", and we're opening room for disagreement.

In other words this kind of doublespeak is backed by another type of doublespeak: disguising the subjective as objective. You see the same underlying phenomenon behind the usage of the word "toxic".

*by "we" I mean "people in general", not necessarily you and me.

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CanadaPlus 1 point 3 years ago

I suspect a lot of people make the mistake of seeking out analysis, but not stopping to consider if they actually understand more after reading it, as well. They figure because they spent half an hour reading they must now be smarter, when that's not necessarily the case, and from a writer's perspective that gives an opportunity to make money by producing giant quantities of boilerplate text. Or at least did, before GPT and friends showed up.

In other words this kind of doublespeak is backed by another type of doublespeak: disguising the subjective as objective. You see the same underlying phenomenon behind the usage of the word “toxic”.

Can you give an example? The first thing that comes to mind is "toxic masculinity", which is more of a "set expression", and then "toxicity" in online spaces which in context refers to an abundance of hostility or negative emotional content.

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lvxferre 2 points 3 years ago

I suspect a lot of people make the mistake of seeking out analysis, but not stopping to consider if they actually understand more after reading it, as well.

Yup. Or stopping to analyse the analysis, it isn't just because someone analysed it that it'll be necessarily worth a damn.

from a writer’s perspective that gives an opportunity to make money by producing giant quantities of boilerplate text.

Similarities with "self-help" are not a mere coincidence.

Can you give an example?

Sure. Made up and a bit forced, but it should be typical enough to highlight what I mean:

  • [Alice] Bob, I think that you should cut your hair.
  • [Bob] Alice, this is toxic. I didn't ask your opinion!

Bob clearly doesn't like uncalled advice. That's fine for me, I don't like it either, and it would be also fine if Bob said "hey Alice, I don't like this, stahp". But that's still someone (a subject) not liking something - in other words a subjective matter. It's an opinion and it should be treated as such.

And, yet by labelling the behaviour "toxic", Bob makes it look like it's something about the object (the behaviour) thus objective, something intrinsically true, shielded against the criticism that an opinion would get. But it's still an opinion, so you can't even criticise it as a true/false statement - you can't "prove" an opinion.

Note that even the description that you've provided hints this duplicity: hostility is objective, but "negative emotional" is subjective.

(I didn't include "toxic masculinity" because I didn't really think about it. Plus as you said it's a fixed expression, those tend to vary in meaning too much from the component words. )

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MyDogLovesMe 19 points 3 years ago

What’s that “Kids Online Safety Bill” thing in the USA right now?

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SgtSilverLining 12 points 3 years ago

Where I live we call it "Minnesota nice". As a transplant I can't speak it well, so I have no idea what anyone thinks of me. It's pretty frustrating.

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Perfide 8 points 3 years ago

Every time I've talked to any manager or supervisor I've ever had.

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Nemo 7 points 3 years ago

It's ubiquitous.

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dRLY 7 points 3 years ago

Not being hyperbolic, but almost every single time I have to speak with or am spoken to by a manager/GM at work. HR at all large companies I have ever worked for as well.

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charonn0 7 points 3 years ago

I work for/with a religiously-affiliated charitable organization, so doublespeak is pretty constant. Worse, not only do people use it but they also police the speech of those around them.

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w00 6 points 3 years ago

I'm not even sure what is ment by that.Do you mean like repeating yourself in another language when talking to groups?

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Stovetop 3 points 3 years ago
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Taleya 3 points 3 years ago path: 0 3311173 3311770, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 10
cheese_greater 3 points 3 years ago

William Lutz is an American linguist who specializes in the use of plain language and the avoidance of doublespeak (deceptive language). He wrote a famous essay “The World of Doublespeak” on this subject as well as the book Doublespeak, which described the four different types of doublespeak (euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated language) and the social dangers of doublespeak.

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Taleya 6 points 3 years ago

Don't forget the first summary:

"Doublespeak is the language of non-responsibility, carefully constructed to appear to communicate when it fact it doesn’t"

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cheese_greater 1 point 3 years ago

My understanding was it was a conceptually-poor language that artificially constrained one's cognitive faculties through the nexus of a limited language/vocabulary emphasizing economy of expression. Sort of like a programming language with very few keywords and only ones that were absolutely necessary to receive and nominally participate in a minimal discourse.

Edit: I think this is actually Newspeak I'm contemplating as opposed to doublespeak. Doublespeak seems to refer to intentionally ambiguous language that obfuscates meaning and emotional content and usually for a political purpose. Like calling unintentional war victims "collateral damage" to reduce the bad publicity from one's war efforts. The wrongfully-dead victims are hidden behind what sounds like oblique accounting or financial jargon.

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000999 3 points 3 years ago

Thanks for this!

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Taleya 3 points 3 years ago

Np!

There's a couple different variants, and OP is most likely talking about 1984, but the core idea is pretty much the same

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riley0 5 points 3 years ago

In the 1984-sense, daily at work.

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cubedsteaks 4 points 3 years ago

All the time at work lol

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