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Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality
What do the phrases “pro-life,� “intelligent design,� and “the war on terror� have in common? Each of them is a name for something that smuggles in a highly charged political opinion. Words and phrases that function in this special way go by many names. Some writers call them “evaluative-descriptive terms.� Others talk of “terministic screens� or discuss the way debates are “framed.� Author Steven Poole calls them Unspeak. Unspeak represents an attempt by politicians, interest groups, and business corporations to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak� in the sense of erasing or silencing� any possible opposing point of view by laying a claim right at the start to only one way of looking at a problem. Recalling the vocabulary of George Orwell’s 1984, as an Unspeak phrase becomes a widely used term of public debate, it saturates the mind with one viewpoint while simultaneously makes an opposing view ever more difficult to enunciate. In this fascinating book, Poole traces modern Unspeak and reveals how the evolution of language changes the way we think.
288 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2005
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October 21, 2019
This is a book about covert propaganda: not the viral videos, garish posters, and snazzy slogans you recognise as such, but the powerful words and phrases slipped into common usage, that frame our thoughts before we utter them. Unspeak includes euphemisms and the opposite, dysphemisms. It veils truth, disguises blame, and says what it means in a loaded, subtle, and potentially divisive way.
�Political language� is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.�
Orwell, in Politics and the English Language.
In a world of 24-hour news and tweetstorms, polarised by divisive populist rhetoric, gaslighting, false equivalents, straw men, alternative facts, and fake news, it’s important to notice the terms we hear, the terms we use, and think about what they really mean.
Image: “It's a 12-year-old poster of a teddy bear reading a book with a pretty mediocre pun. I hardly think that counts as propaganda.� (.)
The focus is on words that had political heft in the UK and US in 2006, when the book was published, but they are all still pertinent today, as are some of the political heavyweights mentioned (John Bolton, James Comey, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld, George W Bush, Fox News). The only way it shows its age is the unavoidable omission of a few newer coinages. Less excusable is the near total absence of LGBTQ+ terms.
The message is as much about consciousness-raising in general as individual examples. False equivalence is a common theme.
You can dip in and out of a series of loosely thematic essays (Community, Nature, Tragedy, Operations, Terror, Abuse, Freedom, Extremism), but there’s plenty of political and etymological history smuggled in, and it’s extensively indexed and annotated.
Selected Examples
Some of these are obvious (but the history and implications are usefully detailed), whereas others provide “Aha� moments.
�But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.�
Orwell, in 1984.
�Community� homogenises groups of people and separates them from “us�. No one talks about the straight white Christian community because that’s the default. But “gay community�, “Jewish community� and so on are common. They are other. And once people are other, it’s easier to accept different rules and restrictions apply to them.
�Asylum seeker� shifts the focus to what people want from us, whereas �refugee� focuses on what people are fleeing from and why.
�Climate change� is more accurate than �global warming�, and the UN adopted it in 1988. But the term has also been promoted by those more aligned to climate change denial: oil states lobbied the UN for the change because it veiled the cause, and a 2003 Republican document about political language advocated it on the basis that it’s less frightening (hence less need for action).
Image: ”What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?� cartoon by Joel Pett in 2009, ahead of 2009, ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit (.)
�Debate�. The climate change “debate� is a prime example of false equivalence. To deflect allegations of bias, debates on the BBC and elsewhere typically pit an esteemed climate scientist against an unqualified denier, on equal footing. The same reasoning is used, especially in the US, to �teach the controversy� about human origins, and thus include �creationism� (disguised under the label �intelligent design�) in science classes.
�Natural resources� implies good things that can and should be used/exploited. And since 1961, �personnel� has been squeezed out by �human resources�.
�Ethnic cleansing�. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and one might think it just means moving an ethnic group from a contested region to a new place. But it’s a euphemism for �genocide�, which is about the deliberate slaughter of a group (legally, it’s as much about intention as scale). Avoiding the G word means the UN is not obliged to act, and thus the term is arguably “collaborating in mass murder�. This book uses Bosnia and Rwanda as examples, but just this week, President Trump used similar language to justify his sudden decision to withdraw US troops who were supporting the Kurds fighting ISIS, thus allowing the Turks to attack them, saying of the area, .
War. Many military and war related terms, especially arising from the Middle East and Gulf regions, are discussed in detail. �Collateral damage� (from ~1976) and �lost his life� are vague about cause and blame, and the former is removes all trace of humanity. There’s a fair bit about the names of military operations, but that’s more obviously positive spin: Operation Overlord (WW2 Normandy), Operation Just Cause (Noriega drug cartels), as well as �surgical strikes� and naming weapons to make them sound either more or less devastating. There’s also plenty about covering up by changing the names of things: dead civilians logged as �combatants�; referring to �settlements� on land previous inhabitants have been forcibly driven from; denying using Napalm in Iraq even though Mark 77 firebombs were essentially the same (made from kerosene instead of petrol); referring to �abuse� and �enhanced interrogation� instead of �torture�.
Once you accept that the ends justify any means,
�It is no longer a paradox to say that we must torture our way to freedom�.
And when you talk about “democracy on the march�, you’re on the way to the Orwellian “War is peace�.
Image: Us versus them by Tom Gauld (.)
�Terrorism� is biased in terms of what we don’t apply it to. My terrorist is your freedom fighter. BBC guidelines say to avoid the word, except when quoting others. Terrorist acts are done, indiscriminately, to those who are not themselves decision-makers, to induce fear and thus pressure those who do have power. 9/11 was clearly a terrorist event, but so too was the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima - even if it shortened the war and thereby saved more lives than it took. Those in the US associate the word with Muslims, and that is increasingly true in the UK, but when I was growing up, it was Irish Catholics (helped by US donations). More interestingly, Poole shows that terrorism doesn’t correlate as closely with any sort of religious fundamentalism as we often think: Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers are primarily nationalist, the Suffragettes used bombs to get the vote, and the French Resistance in WW2 were trying to stop the spread of the Nazis. Even the IRA, though Catholic, and the various Protestant opposites (UVF, UDA, UFF) were more about politics than religion.
�War on Terror� fuels the fear, doing some of the terrorists� work for them. Not that you can fight a tactic, and not that it applies to other forms of terror like horror films or white-knuckle rides in theme parks.
�Terrorist suspect� has proved a useful way to imply enough guilt to justify extreme measures - and also trips off the tongue nicely, to the tune of Eleanor Rigby! Of course, the authorities need to do everything they can to prevent terrorist actions, but if we go too far towards -style pre-crime, we reduce the freedoms we’re trying to protect. There’s no right answer. But the questions are important.
�Meritocracy� was coined in 1958, as satire, with the expectation that such a system would lead to more social division. Tony Blair was keen on the term, but is the effect that only those who’ve achieved power, allegedly by merit, really matter?
�Extremism� is at the root of much of this. Extreme used to be an absolute, but now we think of it as binary opposites, which entrenches polarised positions. (For thoughts about broadening one’s outlook, see Life Isn't Binary, which I reviewed HERE.) A false binary view is also why the media so often give equal prominence to unequal positions, under the guise of “balance� and "debate", as mentioned above.
�Pro life� suggests anyone who supports abortion rights, even in limited circumstances, is against life in general (and ignores the fact that many anti-abortionists are pro conception and pro birth, but less inclined to support life that struggles after: social security, free healthcare, sensible gun control etc). If forced to pick whether life or choice is more important, the language preempts a decision.
�Friends of the Earth� nods to Gaia theory. It’s not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a subtle assumption, built into the name.
Unspeak to Add?
There are some social (subsidised) housing tenants living in properties larger than they now need, while growing families are crammed in homes far too small. Some of the former group may not need social housing at all any more. Finding a way to reallocate is logistically tricky, but should be uncontroversial in principle. The UK government made a dreadful mess of implementing such a scheme (charging people who had an unnecessary room), and there were shocking examples of injustice. Nevertheless, the fact the intended term �spare room subsidy� was rapidly replaced with �bedroom tax� by its opponents and then the media didn’t help.
The proportion of UK 18-year olds going to full-time university has increased from around 15% when I went to nearly 50% now. It’s not viable for the state to be as generous to such a huge cohort, so grants were reduced and tuition fees introduced. The LibDems had long favoured a �graduate tax� and before the 2007 election, promised not to increase �tuition fees�. To everyone’s surprise, they ended up in power: a minor partner in Cameron’s coalition government - which increased tuition fees. The new repayment structure meant it was a graduate tax in all but name, and if the LibDems had managed to make that name stick, they might not have been slaughtered at the next election for their broken promise.
Certain strands of US debate conflates �socialism� and �communism�: some may do so as deliberate Unspeak, but the result is misinformed fear. If you think providing basic healthcare is somehow linked to Stalin and China, you’re unlikely to view it favourably (or notice that all the other developed countries in the world have it to some extent).
See also
� Orwell’s Newspeak in 1984. See my review HERE.
� Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language. See my review HERE.
� Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary from 1906. See my review HERE.
� Iantaffi and Barker’s Life Isn't Binary. See my review HERE.
� Political Cows analogy, all over the internet, including .
� Rhetorical fallacies, .
"An extremist is someone who rejects facts and holds on to opinions no matter what."
Bill O'Reilly in 2005, of Fox News till 2017.
�Political language� is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.�
Orwell, in Politics and the English Language.
In a world of 24-hour news and tweetstorms, polarised by divisive populist rhetoric, gaslighting, false equivalents, straw men, alternative facts, and fake news, it’s important to notice the terms we hear, the terms we use, and think about what they really mean.
Image: “It's a 12-year-old poster of a teddy bear reading a book with a pretty mediocre pun. I hardly think that counts as propaganda.� (.)
The focus is on words that had political heft in the UK and US in 2006, when the book was published, but they are all still pertinent today, as are some of the political heavyweights mentioned (John Bolton, James Comey, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld, George W Bush, Fox News). The only way it shows its age is the unavoidable omission of a few newer coinages. Less excusable is the near total absence of LGBTQ+ terms.
The message is as much about consciousness-raising in general as individual examples. False equivalence is a common theme.
You can dip in and out of a series of loosely thematic essays (Community, Nature, Tragedy, Operations, Terror, Abuse, Freedom, Extremism), but there’s plenty of political and etymological history smuggled in, and it’s extensively indexed and annotated.
Selected Examples
Some of these are obvious (but the history and implications are usefully detailed), whereas others provide “Aha� moments.
�But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.�
Orwell, in 1984.
�Community� homogenises groups of people and separates them from “us�. No one talks about the straight white Christian community because that’s the default. But “gay community�, “Jewish community� and so on are common. They are other. And once people are other, it’s easier to accept different rules and restrictions apply to them.
�Asylum seeker� shifts the focus to what people want from us, whereas �refugee� focuses on what people are fleeing from and why.
�Climate change� is more accurate than �global warming�, and the UN adopted it in 1988. But the term has also been promoted by those more aligned to climate change denial: oil states lobbied the UN for the change because it veiled the cause, and a 2003 Republican document about political language advocated it on the basis that it’s less frightening (hence less need for action).
Image: ”What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?� cartoon by Joel Pett in 2009, ahead of 2009, ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit (.)
�Debate�. The climate change “debate� is a prime example of false equivalence. To deflect allegations of bias, debates on the BBC and elsewhere typically pit an esteemed climate scientist against an unqualified denier, on equal footing. The same reasoning is used, especially in the US, to �teach the controversy� about human origins, and thus include �creationism� (disguised under the label �intelligent design�) in science classes.
�Natural resources� implies good things that can and should be used/exploited. And since 1961, �personnel� has been squeezed out by �human resources�.
�Ethnic cleansing�. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and one might think it just means moving an ethnic group from a contested region to a new place. But it’s a euphemism for �genocide�, which is about the deliberate slaughter of a group (legally, it’s as much about intention as scale). Avoiding the G word means the UN is not obliged to act, and thus the term is arguably “collaborating in mass murder�. This book uses Bosnia and Rwanda as examples, but just this week, President Trump used similar language to justify his sudden decision to withdraw US troops who were supporting the Kurds fighting ISIS, thus allowing the Turks to attack them, saying of the area, .
War. Many military and war related terms, especially arising from the Middle East and Gulf regions, are discussed in detail. �Collateral damage� (from ~1976) and �lost his life� are vague about cause and blame, and the former is removes all trace of humanity. There’s a fair bit about the names of military operations, but that’s more obviously positive spin: Operation Overlord (WW2 Normandy), Operation Just Cause (Noriega drug cartels), as well as �surgical strikes� and naming weapons to make them sound either more or less devastating. There’s also plenty about covering up by changing the names of things: dead civilians logged as �combatants�; referring to �settlements� on land previous inhabitants have been forcibly driven from; denying using Napalm in Iraq even though Mark 77 firebombs were essentially the same (made from kerosene instead of petrol); referring to �abuse� and �enhanced interrogation� instead of �torture�.
Once you accept that the ends justify any means,
�It is no longer a paradox to say that we must torture our way to freedom�.
And when you talk about “democracy on the march�, you’re on the way to the Orwellian “War is peace�.
Image: Us versus them by Tom Gauld (.)
�Terrorism� is biased in terms of what we don’t apply it to. My terrorist is your freedom fighter. BBC guidelines say to avoid the word, except when quoting others. Terrorist acts are done, indiscriminately, to those who are not themselves decision-makers, to induce fear and thus pressure those who do have power. 9/11 was clearly a terrorist event, but so too was the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima - even if it shortened the war and thereby saved more lives than it took. Those in the US associate the word with Muslims, and that is increasingly true in the UK, but when I was growing up, it was Irish Catholics (helped by US donations). More interestingly, Poole shows that terrorism doesn’t correlate as closely with any sort of religious fundamentalism as we often think: Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers are primarily nationalist, the Suffragettes used bombs to get the vote, and the French Resistance in WW2 were trying to stop the spread of the Nazis. Even the IRA, though Catholic, and the various Protestant opposites (UVF, UDA, UFF) were more about politics than religion.
�War on Terror� fuels the fear, doing some of the terrorists� work for them. Not that you can fight a tactic, and not that it applies to other forms of terror like horror films or white-knuckle rides in theme parks.
�Terrorist suspect� has proved a useful way to imply enough guilt to justify extreme measures - and also trips off the tongue nicely, to the tune of Eleanor Rigby! Of course, the authorities need to do everything they can to prevent terrorist actions, but if we go too far towards -style pre-crime, we reduce the freedoms we’re trying to protect. There’s no right answer. But the questions are important.
�Meritocracy� was coined in 1958, as satire, with the expectation that such a system would lead to more social division. Tony Blair was keen on the term, but is the effect that only those who’ve achieved power, allegedly by merit, really matter?
�Extremism� is at the root of much of this. Extreme used to be an absolute, but now we think of it as binary opposites, which entrenches polarised positions. (For thoughts about broadening one’s outlook, see Life Isn't Binary, which I reviewed HERE.) A false binary view is also why the media so often give equal prominence to unequal positions, under the guise of “balance� and "debate", as mentioned above.
�Pro life� suggests anyone who supports abortion rights, even in limited circumstances, is against life in general (and ignores the fact that many anti-abortionists are pro conception and pro birth, but less inclined to support life that struggles after: social security, free healthcare, sensible gun control etc). If forced to pick whether life or choice is more important, the language preempts a decision.
�Friends of the Earth� nods to Gaia theory. It’s not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a subtle assumption, built into the name.
Unspeak to Add?
There are some social (subsidised) housing tenants living in properties larger than they now need, while growing families are crammed in homes far too small. Some of the former group may not need social housing at all any more. Finding a way to reallocate is logistically tricky, but should be uncontroversial in principle. The UK government made a dreadful mess of implementing such a scheme (charging people who had an unnecessary room), and there were shocking examples of injustice. Nevertheless, the fact the intended term �spare room subsidy� was rapidly replaced with �bedroom tax� by its opponents and then the media didn’t help.
The proportion of UK 18-year olds going to full-time university has increased from around 15% when I went to nearly 50% now. It’s not viable for the state to be as generous to such a huge cohort, so grants were reduced and tuition fees introduced. The LibDems had long favoured a �graduate tax� and before the 2007 election, promised not to increase �tuition fees�. To everyone’s surprise, they ended up in power: a minor partner in Cameron’s coalition government - which increased tuition fees. The new repayment structure meant it was a graduate tax in all but name, and if the LibDems had managed to make that name stick, they might not have been slaughtered at the next election for their broken promise.
Certain strands of US debate conflates �socialism� and �communism�: some may do so as deliberate Unspeak, but the result is misinformed fear. If you think providing basic healthcare is somehow linked to Stalin and China, you’re unlikely to view it favourably (or notice that all the other developed countries in the world have it to some extent).
See also
� Orwell’s Newspeak in 1984. See my review HERE.
� Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language. See my review HERE.
� Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary from 1906. See my review HERE.
� Iantaffi and Barker’s Life Isn't Binary. See my review HERE.
� Political Cows analogy, all over the internet, including .
� Rhetorical fallacies, .
"An extremist is someone who rejects facts and holds on to opinions no matter what."
Bill O'Reilly in 2005, of Fox News till 2017.
March 6, 2020
This is a stunningly good book � and despite it seeming to be rather old now, it is still very much on the money and surprisingly relevant. I’m going to suggest you read Cecily’s review /review/show... and Greg’s too /review/show...
This book is virtually a companion book to Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language� which you can also read here:
This book is about how language frames how we understand the world, and that often the language we use misdirects us. Yes, sometimes that is done consciously by governments, businesses or others with vested interests, but sometimes that framing itself simply works to make some ways of understanding the world seem self-evidently true. It is not that there are no conspiracies involved in how language is used to seek to deceive us, but that often the deceptions hardly need to be conscious.
Roland Barthes talks about the difference between the denotations and the connotations of words. This book is really an exploration of the connotations of words and phrases and the implications of those connotations. I’ll give the example of the differences between global warming and climate change. You know, for someone who understands that economic activity is based upon the use of fossil fuels and that burning these produces gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and so on) and that these gases enhance the greenhouse properties of earth’s atmosphere, then the phrases global warming and climate change look all a bit the same. However, the author points out that this is not how someone who doesn’t understand the science behind greenhouse gas emissions might understand these phrases. For them, global warming is likely to imply that everywhere on the planet is going to get hotter and that this is a bad thing. Now, it isn’t quite true that enhancing the greenhouse effect will necessarily increase temperatures everywhere, but then people like a shorthand version of ideas, even if their lives depend on the longer version of understanding those ideas.
However, those who wanted to sow doubt in the minds of the rest of people, those with invested in selling fossil fuels, for example, pushed to have us to not use global warming, and rather to start using climate change. The point is the connotations here, and the fact that climate changes seems much less terrifying than global warming � although, more accurate still is probably global heat death. Climate change sounds a bit like going on a holiday to the South of France in the winter (or Queensland here in Australia or Florida in the USA) � a nice change of climate. As such, climate change can sound like a pretty nice thing � something you might even pay extra for.
This book takes you on a journey through the connotations of words like Freedom, Terror, Democracy � and it explains how the connotations behind phrases containing these words are used to manipulate and to misdirect people. As such, this book really ought to be compulsory reading � even if you don’t always agree with the author’s politics, since all of these are questions that you really ought to have grappled with.
I would also suggest that you consider how you are also being manipulated by images, and not just by words and their connotations. To see how that works, I would highly recommend an even older book � Goffman’s Gender Advertisements - /book/show/3....
This really is an important book, and one you should read.
This book is virtually a companion book to Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language� which you can also read here:
This book is about how language frames how we understand the world, and that often the language we use misdirects us. Yes, sometimes that is done consciously by governments, businesses or others with vested interests, but sometimes that framing itself simply works to make some ways of understanding the world seem self-evidently true. It is not that there are no conspiracies involved in how language is used to seek to deceive us, but that often the deceptions hardly need to be conscious.
Roland Barthes talks about the difference between the denotations and the connotations of words. This book is really an exploration of the connotations of words and phrases and the implications of those connotations. I’ll give the example of the differences between global warming and climate change. You know, for someone who understands that economic activity is based upon the use of fossil fuels and that burning these produces gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and so on) and that these gases enhance the greenhouse properties of earth’s atmosphere, then the phrases global warming and climate change look all a bit the same. However, the author points out that this is not how someone who doesn’t understand the science behind greenhouse gas emissions might understand these phrases. For them, global warming is likely to imply that everywhere on the planet is going to get hotter and that this is a bad thing. Now, it isn’t quite true that enhancing the greenhouse effect will necessarily increase temperatures everywhere, but then people like a shorthand version of ideas, even if their lives depend on the longer version of understanding those ideas.
However, those who wanted to sow doubt in the minds of the rest of people, those with invested in selling fossil fuels, for example, pushed to have us to not use global warming, and rather to start using climate change. The point is the connotations here, and the fact that climate changes seems much less terrifying than global warming � although, more accurate still is probably global heat death. Climate change sounds a bit like going on a holiday to the South of France in the winter (or Queensland here in Australia or Florida in the USA) � a nice change of climate. As such, climate change can sound like a pretty nice thing � something you might even pay extra for.
This book takes you on a journey through the connotations of words like Freedom, Terror, Democracy � and it explains how the connotations behind phrases containing these words are used to manipulate and to misdirect people. As such, this book really ought to be compulsory reading � even if you don’t always agree with the author’s politics, since all of these are questions that you really ought to have grappled with.
I would also suggest that you consider how you are also being manipulated by images, and not just by words and their connotations. To see how that works, I would highly recommend an even older book � Goffman’s Gender Advertisements - /book/show/3....
This really is an important book, and one you should read.
October 20, 2019
20 Dec 2013
Far out. I've got smoke coming out of my ears. Review to follow.
19 Oct 2019
My critique after some years of consideration of UNSPEAK is, I'm speechless. No, not really, that's just a cop-out from being slack and not getting around to writing a review.
I refer to the book from time to time which is always rewarding. I'd pencil highlighted in the margin on many pages. There is so much interesting information within the covers of UNSPEAK.
THIS BOOK WON'T DATE.
When I bought this book in late 2013 and started reading, I followed the author of FB, who happened to have recently toured Australia. He posted a photo in Feb. 2013 from Perth WA of a poster which had caught his eye, advertising 'The Home of Fish and Chip Gelato: Australia's first Fish and Chip Gelato.' with enticing colour image of said product.
Mr Poole added a one word response. 'Jesus'.
UNSPEAK isn't for everyone, only those who are literate and interested in language and words.
Freedom of speech. There's a subject.
In the chapter on 'Nature', while examining the term Intelligent Design, page 49, on creationists trying to have ID taught as science alongside evolution in schools. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from promoting religion. The Supreme Court stopped previous attempts at teaching creation in science classes.
The Robin Williams gag from the film Man of the Year, about a television political satirist who runs for president, came to mind. Presidential candidate Tom Dobbs, at a campaign rally talks about freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
"Intelligent Design. They say you must teach Intelligent Design. Look at the human body. Is that intelligent? I find it more interesting. You have a waste processing plant next to a recreation area."
Through the collective multiple examples in the book Steven Poole reiterates the other problem of Unspeak - the over-use of words - appropriating them - words like 'genocide' to describe trivial grievances, thus disarming and diluting them. Example page 96.
Newspeak was a warning of what could happen. Unspeak is not fiction, it is real. Unspeak is slowly but surely killing the meaning of language.
Instead of removing words from the language, words and phrases have been appropriated and overused to dilute their meaning.
Far out. I've got smoke coming out of my ears. Review to follow.
19 Oct 2019
My critique after some years of consideration of UNSPEAK is, I'm speechless. No, not really, that's just a cop-out from being slack and not getting around to writing a review.
I refer to the book from time to time which is always rewarding. I'd pencil highlighted in the margin on many pages. There is so much interesting information within the covers of UNSPEAK.
THIS BOOK WON'T DATE.
When I bought this book in late 2013 and started reading, I followed the author of FB, who happened to have recently toured Australia. He posted a photo in Feb. 2013 from Perth WA of a poster which had caught his eye, advertising 'The Home of Fish and Chip Gelato: Australia's first Fish and Chip Gelato.' with enticing colour image of said product.
Mr Poole added a one word response. 'Jesus'.
UNSPEAK isn't for everyone, only those who are literate and interested in language and words.
Freedom of speech. There's a subject.
In the chapter on 'Nature', while examining the term Intelligent Design, page 49, on creationists trying to have ID taught as science alongside evolution in schools. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from promoting religion. The Supreme Court stopped previous attempts at teaching creation in science classes.
The Robin Williams gag from the film Man of the Year, about a television political satirist who runs for president, came to mind. Presidential candidate Tom Dobbs, at a campaign rally talks about freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
"Intelligent Design. They say you must teach Intelligent Design. Look at the human body. Is that intelligent? I find it more interesting. You have a waste processing plant next to a recreation area."
Through the collective multiple examples in the book Steven Poole reiterates the other problem of Unspeak - the over-use of words - appropriating them - words like 'genocide' to describe trivial grievances, thus disarming and diluting them. Example page 96.
Newspeak was a warning of what could happen. Unspeak is not fiction, it is real. Unspeak is slowly but surely killing the meaning of language.
Instead of removing words from the language, words and phrases have been appropriated and overused to dilute their meaning.
March 23, 2018
Steven Poole is a cunning linguist.
He disses George Orwell, just to make himself look better, then admits with fake modesty that he's no expert and just a close reader.
He quotes Noam Chomsky, disingenously and out of context, just to make Chomsky look like a dick.
He then sets up straw-man arguments so that he can, oh so cleverly, knock them down.
He sets himself the incredibly hard task of taking apart the words of such noted thinkers, intellectuals and luminaries as George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice.
Our governments are lying to us and use language to hide it. Who knew? Who knew.
Some earlier chapters are excellent and persuasive. But often, despite agreeing with the premise of the book, I found myself irritated by Poole's grating tone of smugness.
He goes off-the-rails at the end, focusing in later chapters almost exclusively on the war on terror.
Even though this is where we should care most, and his arguments should be strongest, he goes to town with smugness and pushes his own arguments to silly, contorted, linguistic extremes.
I agree wholeheartedly with the original premise of the book. But he's guilty of using the very tricks and devices he decries "them" for using.
A book that seeks to expose Unspeak ends up full of it.
It's at the service or humour and political analysis rather than mass murder, of course, but still bullshit and still annoying.
Literary journalism is an oxymoron.
Steven Poole is well-and-truly full of it � and full of himself.
He reviewed reviews of his book on the Unspeak website and his tone is the same there.
Admittedly, I laughed that he quoted Alistair Campbell's dismissive review of his book, as ""Crap from start to finish", on the front cover of his book.
I've delibereately just blurted out my thoughts rather than write up a proper review� the last thing I want is this guy reading what I've said about his book and sending me footnotes.
I'm glad that I read it but I was also glad when I'd finished.
Please let me never be sat next to this man at a dinner party.
Ok, I admit, I'm just annoyed that he slagged off Orwell and Chomsky.
You can buy the book .
He disses George Orwell, just to make himself look better, then admits with fake modesty that he's no expert and just a close reader.
He quotes Noam Chomsky, disingenously and out of context, just to make Chomsky look like a dick.
He then sets up straw-man arguments so that he can, oh so cleverly, knock them down.
He sets himself the incredibly hard task of taking apart the words of such noted thinkers, intellectuals and luminaries as George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice.
Our governments are lying to us and use language to hide it. Who knew? Who knew.
Some earlier chapters are excellent and persuasive. But often, despite agreeing with the premise of the book, I found myself irritated by Poole's grating tone of smugness.
He goes off-the-rails at the end, focusing in later chapters almost exclusively on the war on terror.
Even though this is where we should care most, and his arguments should be strongest, he goes to town with smugness and pushes his own arguments to silly, contorted, linguistic extremes.
I agree wholeheartedly with the original premise of the book. But he's guilty of using the very tricks and devices he decries "them" for using.
A book that seeks to expose Unspeak ends up full of it.
It's at the service or humour and political analysis rather than mass murder, of course, but still bullshit and still annoying.
Literary journalism is an oxymoron.
Steven Poole is well-and-truly full of it � and full of himself.
He reviewed reviews of his book on the Unspeak website and his tone is the same there.
Admittedly, I laughed that he quoted Alistair Campbell's dismissive review of his book, as ""Crap from start to finish", on the front cover of his book.
I've delibereately just blurted out my thoughts rather than write up a proper review� the last thing I want is this guy reading what I've said about his book and sending me footnotes.
I'm glad that I read it but I was also glad when I'd finished.
Please let me never be sat next to this man at a dinner party.
Ok, I admit, I'm just annoyed that he slagged off Orwell and Chomsky.
You can buy the book .
June 25, 2017
Read some; skimmed the rest. Fascinating descriptions of changes in words meanings over time and how manipulation of this property can change reality. I found the section on "climate change" versus "global warming" particularly enlightening. Probably will go back later for a more careful read, but had to return library copy.
November 13, 2008
Apparently Unspeak is almost solely the providence of Western, Free-market, Democracies. The naked bias and anti-Bush/ Blair rhetoric diminished the otherwise interesting content of the book.
April 21, 2015
Reccomend to anyone, its witty and acerbic, the way he unpacks the meanings and nuances of jargon and newspeak is like nothing I've seen before. Before the words just creeped us all out, but now we have a delicate insight into their insidious implications.
August 24, 2018
Startling and witty analysis of the language of modern politics:
With Ben Goldacre, Poole is a model for political writing: eloquent, empirical rage.
The book's noticeably a product of the time - attacking New Labour and the Bush administration in particular - but its principles transfer.
UNSPEAK - a mode of speech that persuades by stealth, e.g., climate change [rather than global warming], war on terror [rather than war on Afghanistan], ethnic cleansing [rather than genocide], road map [rather than plan], community [rather than 'some self-elected representatives of a supposedly unified group'], 'barrier' [rather than 'wall' or 'checkpoint' or 'annexation'].
With Ben Goldacre, Poole is a model for political writing: eloquent, empirical rage.
The book's noticeably a product of the time - attacking New Labour and the Bush administration in particular - but its principles transfer.
March 20, 2017
A really nice articulation of a sense about political/media language that I have held for a long time.
August 12, 2021
Sometimes some books surprise you with different topics which you unconsciously want to learn the secret behind, such as the term "Unspeak".
The topics are excellent and tarnish the image of people or nations behind such use.
Every page shows you a direction which you have never traveled before and how the world makes you fool, especially our politicians.
Usage of mild terms to hide the real truth and different countries use different terms to cheat their citizens.
Words like Community, Nature, Tragedy, Terror, Abuse, Freedom, Extremist....can give different meaning to different nations and to different readers. Must read to understand our corrupted world behind such words.
Even after reading these books we are never going to change and we just move on by treating this as knowledge.
The topics are excellent and tarnish the image of people or nations behind such use.
Every page shows you a direction which you have never traveled before and how the world makes you fool, especially our politicians.
Usage of mild terms to hide the real truth and different countries use different terms to cheat their citizens.
Words like Community, Nature, Tragedy, Terror, Abuse, Freedom, Extremist....can give different meaning to different nations and to different readers. Must read to understand our corrupted world behind such words.
Even after reading these books we are never going to change and we just move on by treating this as knowledge.
July 5, 2019
This book filled me with anger down to every and each fibre of my pointless being. READ IT. NOW. IT'S IMPORTANT.
March 25, 2020
A fascinating read detailing how language is used and twisted by those in power or with an agenda. Published in 2007 but still oh so relevant today. Informative and witty.
February 12, 2024
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March 12, 2013
In this book, Steven Poole goes to great lengths to cite evidence for "Unspeak", a term he coins for the "mode of speech that persuades by stealth". He describes dozens of examples, including phrases like "pro-life", "ethnic cleansing" and "freedom is on the march". He accuses mostly the American and British political and corporate circles of drilling these misleading terms into the minds of the public, cleverly hiding political arguments in euphemistic-sounding terms. For example, if you're not pro-life, what does that make you? "Anti-life" or "pro-death" - either way, opponents of the pro-life camp are automatically demonized.
This book offers a lot of food for thought. We are encouraged to have a thoughtful mind and a critical eye on everything, but rarely do we reflect on the name itself. Names, when repeated often enough, enter into our subconscious and we are not even aware of their appropriateness. This is in fact a kind of subliminal brainwash.
But we are not powerless. What we can do is quite simple: stay vigilant. When we encounter a new term, think about it thoroughly to see if it hides any political connotation. We may not be able to stop the onslaught of Unspeak, but at least we can refuse to be heedless perpetrators.
The book is not without flaws though. Steven Poole has truly done a lot of research on this, but sometimes he gets a little carried away, treating almost all government-speak and media-speak to be Unspeak. Although it is true that "words have consequences in the world", the consequences are not always as dire as he thinks. He condemns the term "ethnic cleansing" and argues that people are misled by the positive term "cleansing". This is simply a naive belief. All around the world people are fully aware of the atrocity of acts of "ethnic cleansing" (helped by graphic news photographs no doubt), and I doubt if any educated person would mistake it for, say, scrubbing the back of an immigrant.
It is true that people are influenced by the names of things, but sooner or later they will be able to see through the names and get to the heart of the matter. Unspeak is not as devastating as he thinks.
This book offers a lot of food for thought. We are encouraged to have a thoughtful mind and a critical eye on everything, but rarely do we reflect on the name itself. Names, when repeated often enough, enter into our subconscious and we are not even aware of their appropriateness. This is in fact a kind of subliminal brainwash.
But we are not powerless. What we can do is quite simple: stay vigilant. When we encounter a new term, think about it thoroughly to see if it hides any political connotation. We may not be able to stop the onslaught of Unspeak, but at least we can refuse to be heedless perpetrators.
The book is not without flaws though. Steven Poole has truly done a lot of research on this, but sometimes he gets a little carried away, treating almost all government-speak and media-speak to be Unspeak. Although it is true that "words have consequences in the world", the consequences are not always as dire as he thinks. He condemns the term "ethnic cleansing" and argues that people are misled by the positive term "cleansing". This is simply a naive belief. All around the world people are fully aware of the atrocity of acts of "ethnic cleansing" (helped by graphic news photographs no doubt), and I doubt if any educated person would mistake it for, say, scrubbing the back of an immigrant.
It is true that people are influenced by the names of things, but sooner or later they will be able to see through the names and get to the heart of the matter. Unspeak is not as devastating as he thinks.
August 23, 2008
"Unspeak" is the art of speaking while doing two things: 1) Avoiding discussion of the unspoken assumptions behind words, and 2) simultaneously silencing the counter-argument. It's not exactly "framing" (Lakoff) and it's not "Newspeak" (Orwell) but a combination of the two and more as well. One of Poole's arguments is that, by analyzing unspeak, one can really begin to understand what the person doing the speaking wants or believes. Drawing mostly from the last couple of decades (and especially the last ten years or so) Poole goes through a large variety of examples, taking special care to examine how the words used really betray the speaker's actual desires. The emphasis is largely on Britain and the USA, and especially the Blair and Bush administrations. You can imagine that this gives the work a mostly partisan flavor, although I think Poole usually doesn't take sides - the unspeak speaks for itself, as it were. This is a clever and useful idea, I think. Poole keeps a blog at unspeak.net, where he keeps up with instances of unspeak in public discourse. It's fascinating and maddening, so check it out.
July 23, 2007
I've nearly finished this one and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in current events, politics, journalism/media, communications, language, and the like. It's essentially a study on how words and phrases are created by governments, organizations, media outlets, etc. as euphemisms and propaganda, and the negative effects that has on language, society, and, and its core, truth.
Practically every topical issue is discussed, and I think most mindful readers will find the sections on such atrocious, misleading phrases like "Intelligent Design," and "War on Terror" equally fascinating and infuriating. There are certainly lags (I found the sections on global warming, "anti-social behavior," and a few others to be surprisingly bland), but for the most part, "Unspeak" is a well-articulated, pointed meditation on propaganda in the modern world.
One last note: Orwell fans will find this book particularly chilling. Often when reading a section, I can think of only one word: DOUBLESPEAK.
Practically every topical issue is discussed, and I think most mindful readers will find the sections on such atrocious, misleading phrases like "Intelligent Design," and "War on Terror" equally fascinating and infuriating. There are certainly lags (I found the sections on global warming, "anti-social behavior," and a few others to be surprisingly bland), but for the most part, "Unspeak" is a well-articulated, pointed meditation on propaganda in the modern world.
One last note: Orwell fans will find this book particularly chilling. Often when reading a section, I can think of only one word: DOUBLESPEAK.
August 19, 2013
This is a thoroughly enjoyable and challenging book about the way we are "spoken to" by those who lead us or aspire to lead us. There are terms used by them and others that "smuggle in" a political opinion. Here are some examples - "Pro choice", "Right to Life", Friends of the Earth". The genius behind them is that if you disagree with them you are :"Against Choice" "Opposed to Life" and an "Enemy of the Earth". I also thought of "Border Protection" in our current climate.
There are other terms that kind of suck us into believing things are worse than they really are ("Weapons of mass Destruction") or better than they really are ("Conventional weapons", "Smart weapons", "surgical strikes").
I really liked the book. I only gave it a 3 because the information is a little dated (2006) and the shock values is not as great as it would have been 6 or 7 years ago.
There are other terms that kind of suck us into believing things are worse than they really are ("Weapons of mass Destruction") or better than they really are ("Conventional weapons", "Smart weapons", "surgical strikes").
I really liked the book. I only gave it a 3 because the information is a little dated (2006) and the shock values is not as great as it would have been 6 or 7 years ago.
October 21, 2008
Language has long been a powerful manipulator of public opinion. British author Steven Poole reinforces this truism in his book, Unspeak.
How public figures use speech and coin phrases can drastically change the way citizens view politicians and policies. It is no coincidence to learn that the United States' military operations in Iraq are now called "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (OIF), rather than the original "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (OIL).
Poole spends most of his well-researched tome on military and political issues, but also covers ingenious ways that authorities manipulate language after mistakes, in order to minimize their own noninvolvement. A fascinating reminder of the power of words.
How public figures use speech and coin phrases can drastically change the way citizens view politicians and policies. It is no coincidence to learn that the United States' military operations in Iraq are now called "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (OIF), rather than the original "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (OIL).
Poole spends most of his well-researched tome on military and political issues, but also covers ingenious ways that authorities manipulate language after mistakes, in order to minimize their own noninvolvement. A fascinating reminder of the power of words.
May 9, 2013
It's entertaining enough, but others have said it better and the second half of the book is really more of a sustained attack on US/UK foreign policy circa 2005 than an analysis of the use and misuse of language in political life. And I'm not sure that anyone is fooled by terms like 'ethnic cleansing'. Certainly I think of genocide, or at the very least, forced homelessness, rather than fairy liquid.
He's dead right about that horrible phrase "human resources" though. Today, you're useful to us in accounts. Tomorrow, we might better deploy you as fuel for our new human flesh powered power station Or something...
He's dead right about that horrible phrase "human resources" though. Today, you're useful to us in accounts. Tomorrow, we might better deploy you as fuel for our new human flesh powered power station Or something...
July 7, 2010
This is a book all about language, and how the terms and titles used by politicians and the media are carefully thought out for maximum impact. And the use and abuse of language makes for a very interesting read. But in the end I thought that this book just didn’t know quite what tone it was trying to get across. At certain times it was very serious, at others a strange sort of humour pervaded, and they didn’t really sit all that well together.
Full review:
Full review:
July 1, 2012
The author writes about how we use language to force people to think a certain way, and so far he seems to do this somewhat even-handedly, and admits that he does it himself, inviting us to find examples of him doing the very thing he is condemning.
He points out that the terms Pro-choice and Pro-life, for example, both skew the argument in the user's favour.
I've been musing over his section on anti-social behaviour, which tells of British laws seeking to force people to stop offending others. In an extreme case, an 87 year old man had an order to prevent him using sarcastic language!
He points out that the terms Pro-choice and Pro-life, for example, both skew the argument in the user's favour.
I've been musing over his section on anti-social behaviour, which tells of British laws seeking to force people to stop offending others. In an extreme case, an 87 year old man had an order to prevent him using sarcastic language!
June 7, 2007
This book starts out with a short story about Confucius and his belief of the impact of improper language. The book then goes on to illustrate how governments and media manipulated language to be ambiguous, misleading, and out right lie. It's an interesting read because once you finish the book you will never look at government announcements and media publishing the same. You even become conscious of your own language and how you choose your words.
September 20, 2010
I agree with almost every review provided on ŷ. The topic is important, he provides convincing examples, but the tone varies. Whether or not he has an ideological bias he appeared to me to be making a systemic claim. Unspeak is neither a conservative nor a liberal problem but a social problem.
In particular I would suggest you read this book for the examples of how the meanings of "community" and "freedom" have been distorted.
In particular I would suggest you read this book for the examples of how the meanings of "community" and "freedom" have been distorted.
April 2, 2013
If you were not cynical about communications from governments and large corporations before reading this book, you will most assuredly be so after reading it.
If you were cynical, you will now be downright paranoid.
Should be required reading for anybody who reads newspapers or magazines, watches TV or listens to the radio, (yes I know I'm showing my age here) or uses the internet for anything other than gaming or porn.
If you enjoyed it, check out
If you were cynical, you will now be downright paranoid.
Should be required reading for anybody who reads newspapers or magazines, watches TV or listens to the radio, (yes I know I'm showing my age here) or uses the internet for anything other than gaming or porn.
If you enjoyed it, check out
October 6, 2013
The author explains it better than I ever could. "Unspeak finds soothing names for violence so that violence no longer surprises the deadened mind." An interesting study of the use of Unspeak by governments, in particular the USA's. I've often raged at governments and the media using false and misleading language, and I get really angry that they think I'm stupid enough to be fooled by it.
June 8, 2007
Steve Poole is very smart. And kinda funny, in that understated, British way. He makes some really excellent points in this book, especially his arguments on the Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice movement and "Intelligent Design."
March 5, 2008
This book is quite biased, but its still a very interesting take on how the media/government so largely influences our understanding of cultural events simply through the words they choose, or create.
Read with a grain (or shaker) of salt.
Read with a grain (or shaker) of salt.
June 19, 2008
A fascinating and brilliant look at the way media, government and by turns, us the public use and abuse language and the meanings thereof.
It will make you read every news story twice and think through the statements made by politicians.
Highly enlightening.
Cheers
R,
It will make you read every news story twice and think through the statements made by politicians.
Highly enlightening.
Cheers
R,
January 19, 2009
really great until about halfway through, at which point it just loses steam.
Fascinating topic, great examples. It's very palpable, this sense of words being used to manipulate. It just doesn't remain interesting to the last.
Fascinating topic, great examples. It's very palpable, this sense of words being used to manipulate. It just doesn't remain interesting to the last.
January 18, 2008
Good idea, boring book.
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