Do You See Any Parallels?

A list of words from Newspeak that appears in George Orwell‘s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

• artsem – artificial insemination
• bb – Big Brother
• bellyfeel – a blind, enthusiastic acceptance of an idea
• blackwhite – the ability to believe that black is white, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary
• crimestop – to rid oneself of unwanted thoughts, i.e., thoughts that interfere with the ideology of the Party. This way, a person avoids committing thoughtcrime
• crimethink – Thoughtcrime, thoughts that are unorthodox or outside the official government platform (or the crime of thinking such thoughts)
• dayorder – Order of the day
• doubleplusgood – Replaces excellent, best and benevolent
• doubleplusungood – Replaces terrible and worst
• doublethink – the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct
• duckspeak – Voicing political orthodoxies without thinking, lit. “to quack like a duck”
• equal – Only in the sense of physically equal, like equal height/size, etc. It does not mean socially – politically or economically – equal, since there is no such concept as political equality in Ingsoc’s permanent oligarchical hierarchy. In keeping with doublethink, Ingsoc is also classless and egalitarian, so there is also no concept of social inequality.
• facecrime – An indication that a person is guilty of thoughtcrime based on their facial expression
• free – Meaning Negative freedom (without) in a physical sense, only in statements like “This dog is free from lice”, as the concepts of “political freedom” and “intellectual freedom” do not exist in Newspeak
• full – (the adverb fullwise appears in the Records Department’s written orders)
• good – (Can also be used as a prefix vaguely meaning “orthodox”)
• goodthink – thoughts that are approved by the Party and follow its policies, ideals and interpretations. It is the opposite of crimethink
• goodsex – intercourse between man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children and without physical pleasure
• ingsoc – English Socialism
• joycamp – Forced labour camp
• malquoted – flaws or inaccurate presentations of Party or Big Brother-related matters by the press. See misprints below
• miniluv – “Ministry of Love” (secret police, interrogation and torture)
• minipax – “Ministry of Peace” (Ministry of War, cf: ‘Department of Defense’ vs ‘War Department’)
• minitrue – “Ministry of Truth” (propaganda and altering history, culture and entertainment)
• miniplenty – “Ministry of Plenty” (keeping the population in a state of constant economic hardship)
• misprints – Errors or mispredictions which need to be rectified in order to prove that the Party is always right. See malquoted above
• oldspeak – English; perhaps any language that is not Newspeak
• oldthink – Ideas inspired by events or memories of times prior to the Revolution
• ownlife – the tendency to enjoy being solitary or individualistic
• plusgood – replaces the words better and great. Refers to good compliance with Party orthodoxy.
• pornosec – subunit of the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth that produces pornography
• prolefeed – The steady stream of mindless entertainment to distract and occupy the masses
• recdep – “Records Department” (division of the Ministry of Truth that deals with the rectification of records; department in which Winston works)
• rectify – used by the Ministry of Truth as a euphemism for the deliberate alteration (or ‘correction’) of the past
• ref – To refer (to)
• sec – Sector
• sexcrime – any and all sexual activity which is not specifically goodsex
• speakwrite – An instrument used by Party members to note or “write” down information by speaking into an apparatus as a faster alternative to an “ink pencil”. It is, for example, used in the Ministry of Truth by the protagonist Winston Smith. Speakwrites are also apparently able to record everything that is spoken into the device
• telescreen – television and security camera-like devices used by the ruling Party in Oceania to keep its subjects under constant surveillance
• thinkpol – the Thought Police
• thoughtcrime – the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question Ingsoc
• Unperson – someone of whom, after his or her execution, any evidence [up to and including memories] that he or she ever existed was erased [or derided as potentially dangerous falsehoods].
• upsub – submit to higher authority. In one scene in the novel, Winston Smith is instructed to alter a document to conform with the Party line, and submit it to his superiors before filing it: rewrite fullwise upsubantefiling

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