One
issue that really stood out to me in 1984
was the idea that words were being eliminated from the language. This event
came up when Winston sits down for lunch and Syme enthusiastically explains
that he was helping to delete word, including descriptive adjectives, from
Newspeak. His logic behind this action is that it will render thoughtcrime
impossible. Replacing words like “great” with “plus good” and “wonderful” with “doubleplus
good” will make rebelling impossible as people aren’t capable of displaying
their beliefs. I found this very interesting and concerning because a future
without the ability to express one’s emotions is scary. Literature is based on
how people form their sentences, what tones the use and what words they choose
to utilize. The fact that the government is trying to eliminate this is one of
the biggest forms of oppression.
I found
an article written earlier this month in The
Guardian that relates to this topic. Back in 2007, the editors of the
Oxford Junior Dictionary decided to delete a list of word and then replace
them. What was interesting was that all the words removed had to do with nature
(acorn, adder, ash, heron, mistletoe, newt, otter) and the words that were
added had to do with technology (broadband, bullet point, blog, chatroom,
cut-and-paste). This has come up recently because writes are gathering to campaign
to get these words back in the dictionary. They are explaining that even if
these words are seldom used anymore, which studies show they are, they should
still be available.
This is
similar to 1984 because this company is deleting words that are more associated
with the past and replacing them with more current language. In my opinion, even these small changes are a
little concerning because language and writing are one of the main ways we hold
onto the past. In 1984, the past has
been corrupted and this has had unhealthy consequences on the people of
Oceania. Obviously, our society should strive to not become like Big Brother
and so we can’t be deleting words.
Link to Article: http://www.theguardian.com/
Its really interesting to see that the words being deleted are those that deal with nature. All of the examples given were fairly common words, not necessarily used all the time, but most people would know at least some of them; would you have a problem if they began deleting adjectives that you had never heard of and had become largely obsolete? English is thought to be the largest language in the world, even now, and we have lost a significant number of words since the elizabethan era when Shakespeare was alive. The language is always growing as new words are constantly created, and is there any need to retain so many adjectives and nouns when we have such an abundance of synonyms?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you; I just wanted to play devils advocate.
It seems kind of funny that they are starting to delete words from a dictionary that are slowly becoming no longer relevant in today's society. I think that words about nature should have stayed in the dictionary over newer "tech" words because when would use those words, often times they wouldn't look them up in a physical dictionary to begin with. I also think that it is interesting that they did in fact delete them from the dictionary rather than just keeping them both.
ReplyDelete