Language

As one who often holds the frightening truths of the classic '1984' up to modern day scrutiny (without becoming one of the Lone Gunmen), I find it interesting how language has actually become a political weapon of late. So much so that the 2006 Word of the Year was 'Truthiness.'

And with that, I think the words below are worth remembering.

From Alan Moore:

"George Orwell, in 1984, with his "Newspeak" idea, the idea that a tyrannical government might actually be able to LIMIT the vocabulary and language of a population, and in doing so, because people no longer had so rich a language, no longer had so many WORDS that they were capable of knowing, then they would not have so many CONCEPTS that were within their grasp. That you could limit the intelligence and consciousness of a population simply by limiting their language. This would seem true, but also, the converse would seem true. If you expose people to a more interesting and open form of language, then you might actually expand their consciousness into areas that they perhaps hadn't thought about or considered before."

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And as if truthiness wasn't frightening enough, the blog 'Crooks and Liars' has shown that Stephen Colbert is so brilliantly illustrating what happens when you take this whole thing a step further...

Factiness