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usonian

(24,864 posts)

3. Emmanuel Goldstein, "THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM" in the novel "1984"

Reply to PCIntern (Original post)

Thu Mar 12, 2026, 11:33 AM

Thursday

In 1984, when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for any person well grounded in DOUBLETHINK to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even the possibility of such a lapse would have vanished. A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that EQUAL had once had the secondary meaning of ‘politically equal’, or that FREE had once meant ‘intellectually free’, than for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to QUEEN and ROOK.

...

When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with the past would have been severed. History had already been rewritten.

https://genius.com/Emmanuel-goldstein-the-theory-and-practice-of-oligarchical-collectivism-annotated

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Oh great, thanks gab13by13 Thursday #1

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Emmanuel Goldstein, "THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM" in the novel "1984" usonian Thursday #3

An interesting current example of the death of 'oldspeak' is that the word 'killed' is no longer in vogue on PatrickforB Thursday #14

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