Newspeak are the robots already here?

[fnord]

I'm thinking about the prevalence of social dis-orders lately like autism and those with anxiety disorders (not to discount the people who suffer from their afflictions...???). A thought occurred to me today while I was discussing some abstract issue with a "politically correct" acquaintance. We were discussing an anime show and I was amazed how just words triggered automatic responses both physically and mentally so I decided to try an evil experiment (evil ..evil...me) sure enough. I was reminded about a section 1984 novel by the persons behavior where language was changed.

Newspeak
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For the programming language, see Newspeak (programming language).

Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state. Orwell explained the basic principles of the language in an essay included as an appendix to the novel.[1] Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. The totalitarian aim of the Party is to prevent any alternative thinking–"thoughtcrime", or "crimethink" in the newest edition of Newspeak–by destroying any vocabulary that expresses such concepts as freedom, free enquiry, individualism, resistance to the authority of the state and so on. One character, Syme, says admiringly of the diminishing scope of the new language: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

The Newspeak term for the English language is Oldspeak. The Party intends to replace Oldspeak completely with Newspeak before 2050 (except among the Proles, who are not trained in Newspeak and whom the Party regards as barely human and unimportant).

Orwell was inspired to invent Newspeak by the constructed language Basic English, which he promoted from 1942 to 1944 before emphatically rejecting it in his essay "Politics and the English Language".[2][why?] In this paper he deplores the bad English of his day, citing dying metaphors, pretentious diction or rhetoric, and meaningless words, which he claimed to encourage unclear thought and reasoning. Towards the end of the essay, Orwell states:
“ I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words or constructions. ”
Contents

1 Basic principles
1.1 To remove synonyms and antonyms
1.2 To control thought
2 Vocabulary
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading

Basic principles
To remove synonyms and antonyms

The aim of Newspeak is to remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple concepts (pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, goodthink and crimethink) that reinforce the total dominance of the State. Newspeak root words serve as both nouns and verbs, further reducing the total number of words; for example, "think" is both noun and verb, so the word thought is not required and can be abolished. The party also intends that Newspeak be spoken in staccato rhythms with syllables that are easy to pronounce. This will make speech more automatic and unconscious and reduce the likelihood of thought. (See duckspeak.)

In addition, words with negative meanings are removed as redundant, so "bad" becomes "ungood". Words with comparative and superlative meanings are also simplified, so "better" becomes "gooder", and "best" becomes "goodest".[1] Intensifiers can be added, so "great" became "plusgood", and "excellent" and "splendid" become "doubleplusgood". Adjectives are formed by adding the suffix "-ful" to a root word (e.g., "goodthinkful", orthodox in thought), and adverbs by adding "-wise" ("goodthinkwise", in an orthodox manner). This would, of course, not prevent heretic statements such as "Big Brother is ungood", but not only would this statement sound absurd in the ears of the politically orthodox, it would also be impossible to understand exactly what the statement means, since all concepts and words that can be used to argue against Big Brother would be eradicated from the language.

Some of the constructions in Newspeak, such as "ungood", are characteristic of agglutinative languages, although foreign to English. It is possible that Orwell modelled aspects of Newspeak on Esperanto; for example "ungood" is constructed similarly to the Esperanto word malbona. Orwell had been exposed to Esperanto in 1927 when living in Paris with his aunt Ellen Kate Limouzin and her husband Eugène Lanti, a prominent Esperantist. Esperanto was the language of the house, and Orwell was disadvantaged by not speaking it, which may account for some antipathy towards the language.[1]
To control thought

By 2050–earlier, probably–all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron–they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking–not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.[3]

Some examples of Newspeak from the novel include crimethink, doublethink, and Ingsoc. They mean, respectively, "thought-crime", "accepting as correct two mutually contradictory beliefs", and "English socialism" (the official political philosophy of the Party). The word Newspeak itself also comes from the language. All of these words would be obsolete and have been from the "final" version of Newspeak, except for doubleplusungood in certain contexts.

Generically, Newspeak has come to mean any attempt to restrict disapproved language by a government or other powerful entity.[4]
Vocabulary

The "A" group of words deals with simple concepts needed in everyday life (such as eating, drinking, working, cooking, and the like). It is almost entirely made up of words that already exist in the English language.[5]

The "B" group of words is deliberately constructed to convey more complicated ideas. The words in this group are compound words with political implications, and aim to impose the mental attitude of the Party upon the speaker. For example, the Newspeak word "goodthink" roughly means "orthodoxy".

The "C" group of words deals with technical vocabulary and is supplementary to the other two groups. Since the Party does not want its people to have knowledge of more than one restricted subject, there is no Newspeak word for "science" as a whole. There are separate words for different fields.

[WilloWisp]

So... posting a wikipedia article regarding 1984 is your evil experiment?

I'm afraid we're going to have to revoke your mad scientist license. This doesn't even rise to the level of dastardly, let alone evil.

(Incidentally, an experiment requires a hypothesis to be documented before performing any tests.)

[darkbutflashy]

Consider other people are using a white lie on you when giving stereotypical answers. They don't really want to discuss the topic but don't want to tell you that either.