https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/hoaevent/AP36tYeWgXKlX4WTntMV0nOXtKU6gusnNzOj13PAbQcP9V9-9VvMlg?authuser=0&eid;=118005377248499612542&hl;=en Having witnessed the shambles that was the televised non debate between messers Milliband and Cameron this week, I was immediately struck by the vagueness of their language.Tonight I would like to talk about politicians duplicitous use of the mother tongue. I look forward to hearing your perspectives. "The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality."- Politics and The English Language George Orwell full article here... http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit SHAME FACE OF THE WEEK!!! is cancelled this week as no fecker nominated any cunt... you had your chance and you blew it..XD Come in for a natter, have your say open doors, abuse it you get barred. It's mah pub...Starts @ 8pm UK =) "I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs."

• published: 29 Mar 2015
• views: 27