Newspeak for the Global Economy
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:47 pm
English is difficult language to learn, so we need to carefully simplify it for use in our ever-growing global economy. Clarity and brevity are very important since we don't want to confuse non-native English speakers or low-skill native English speakers. The good news is that our evolution toward Newspeak seems to be going quite smoothly.
Many adjectives have already reached their saturation point. For example, "good" means average/mediocre whereas "awesome," "tremendous," "epic," "amazing," etc. all just mean great. This makes it much easier to choose the right word since they are usually interchangeable and not as distractingly impactful as they once were. More importantly, some of these words could easily drop out of usage, thereby simplifying vocabulary. If emphasis is needed, repetition of the word or phrase, or addition of words like "simply" or "very" can be used. E.g. "the ski trip was amazing. I can't wait to go again. Simply amazing." Emojis simplify further through repeated use of the "lit" fire emoji, the "100" emoji, etc.
Make sure you are succinct in anything you write for a broad audience. You don't want anyone to misinterpret your meaning in this day and age. It could cause them to press the wrong button on something, or even worse, be offended. Remember that sentences with more than a few words can be confusing and difficult to get through for many people. Don't ever use a confusing statement like "you must register before you can vote" when you can simply say "register to vote". This doesn't just go for broad audiences; make sure all work emails are short and to the point as well. Even if you have a big problem or question to convey, try to keep it to one sentence or less and avoid unnecessary words like "the".
Remember that niche words have very little everyday use. For example, within a technical sub-group of the global economy a word like "buffering" may still have some use, but Newspeak will simply replace it with the phrase "preparing video".
Be sure you have the latest version of Microsoft Office as it has built-in features to aid Newspeak adoption. The automatic Clarity and Conciseness checks continuously scan your document for words and phrases that would be unacceptable if you are producing a document for a multinational corporation. Word now makes it much easier to replace an accidentally typed complex word like "magnitude" with "size" or "in the event that" with "if".
We are well on our way to eliminating English's one problem keeping it from being the one true language of the world: complexity. If we can accomplish this, we can accomplish anything. From one world language, we will move on to one world currency, and soon one world government!
Many adjectives have already reached their saturation point. For example, "good" means average/mediocre whereas "awesome," "tremendous," "epic," "amazing," etc. all just mean great. This makes it much easier to choose the right word since they are usually interchangeable and not as distractingly impactful as they once were. More importantly, some of these words could easily drop out of usage, thereby simplifying vocabulary. If emphasis is needed, repetition of the word or phrase, or addition of words like "simply" or "very" can be used. E.g. "the ski trip was amazing. I can't wait to go again. Simply amazing." Emojis simplify further through repeated use of the "lit" fire emoji, the "100" emoji, etc.
Make sure you are succinct in anything you write for a broad audience. You don't want anyone to misinterpret your meaning in this day and age. It could cause them to press the wrong button on something, or even worse, be offended. Remember that sentences with more than a few words can be confusing and difficult to get through for many people. Don't ever use a confusing statement like "you must register before you can vote" when you can simply say "register to vote". This doesn't just go for broad audiences; make sure all work emails are short and to the point as well. Even if you have a big problem or question to convey, try to keep it to one sentence or less and avoid unnecessary words like "the".
Remember that niche words have very little everyday use. For example, within a technical sub-group of the global economy a word like "buffering" may still have some use, but Newspeak will simply replace it with the phrase "preparing video".
Be sure you have the latest version of Microsoft Office as it has built-in features to aid Newspeak adoption. The automatic Clarity and Conciseness checks continuously scan your document for words and phrases that would be unacceptable if you are producing a document for a multinational corporation. Word now makes it much easier to replace an accidentally typed complex word like "magnitude" with "size" or "in the event that" with "if".
We are well on our way to eliminating English's one problem keeping it from being the one true language of the world: complexity. If we can accomplish this, we can accomplish anything. From one world language, we will move on to one world currency, and soon one world government!