Lies, damned lies… and the double-speak I would expunge

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t) ‘Climate change’, ‘infant mortality’, ‘fair trade’… the list goes on by Johann Hari September 2, 2009 The English language needs periodically to be given a spring-clean, where we scrape off the phrases that have become stuck to the floor and toss out the rotting metaphors that have fallen down the back of the settee. George Orwell warned that language will inevitably become cluttered with phrases that have lost their meaning – or, worse, are actually “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”. He advised: “If one gets rid of these bad habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a nece...