duckspeak
English edit
Etymology edit
duck + speak, coined by George Orwell in 1949 as part of the Newspeak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Noun edit
duckspeak (uncountable)
- Thoughtless or formulaic speech.
- 1989, Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity:
- Because his utterances detour through his brain - rather than, as in duckspeak, coming straight from the well-programmed larynx - he has Socratic doubts...
- 2004, Joan Elizabeth Lloyd, Club Fantasy:
- I think you might just have had the courage to realize things I didn't know were there. That's really duckspeak, isn't it. I only thought I was happy.
- 2006, Stephen Ingle, The social and political thought of George Orwell:
- They have developed a particularly obnoxious form of ungood duckspeak. 'Friendly fire' and 'collateral damage' are only the most obvious examples...
- 2008, Richard J Alexander, Framing Discourse on the Environment: A Critical Discourse Approach:
- To be sure, he provides very many juicy examples of such duckspeak or bullshit...
Translations edit
thoughtless speech
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