Language is the currency of thought,
And at present, the English language
Has been debased; its value plummeted,
Leaving our culture in a tumbling
Spiral towards decadence, decline,
Destruction, delusion, and should we
Forgo taking medicine for our terminal
Disease, untimely death and demise.
Can we by conscious action cure ourselves?
Yes!
But first we must define our bad habits,
The first of which is: the dying metaphor; or,
Using obsolete words and phrases that continue
To circulate through our collective lexicon,
Walking around like corpses which
Refuse to sleep in their coffins.
Do not resign yourselves to groupthink.
Liberate your speech from these awful examples:
Stand shoulder to shoulder with
A chip off the old block
Back against the wall
Back in the saddle
Curiosity killed the cat
Don’t be in a jam, jiffy, or pinch.
Don’t jump the gun by jumping to conclusions,
Parse part and parcel from your vocabulary,
And, for God’s sake,
Don’t be tongue-in-cheek
While telling a cock-and-bull story.
A second bad habit involves turning
Verbs into phrases.
Revoke your slovenly speech
By expelling these “phrases”
To your lexical dust bin:
Render inoperative
Make contact with
Be subjected to
Serve the purpose of
Exhibit a tendency to
Have an inclination towards
Leave something to be desired
Among others.
Written and spoken language
Should be precise and concise
The great enemy
Of clear language is insincerity.
Our dear leaders use
Cloudy, vague, blackwhite, doublethink
To control thought, spurn subversive ideas,
And to corral the huddled masses into a state
Of perpetual fear and confusion,
Nevermore to escape their
Mind-forged manacles and
Shackle-locked hearts,
Nevermore to bear the burdens of liberty,
And all the while making them
Believe their enslavement was
Essential since time immemorial.
Ownlife is thoughtcrime
Obedience—doubleplusgoodthink!
Reason, skepticism—crimethink
Politicians use pre-packaged stale jargon
And veiled euphemism to conceal the truth
And make abhorrent crimes respectable
In the eyes of those who would forgo
The trouble of inventing their own
Clear phrases in favor of
Avoiding the endeavor’s laborious strain.
This linguistic neglect results in a
Backward, contradictory world
Where facts are fiction, and fiction is factual
Where 2+2 = 5
Where kidnapping is phrased as
An extended period of unaccounted for hiatus
Where rape is defined
Non-consensual intercourse
Where murder is termed
Authorized neutralization
And theft henceforth called
Requisite charity withdrawals
The elite use other phrases
When speaking about government.
Two words in particular are
Patriot and patriotic.
State-serving, state-promoting citizens
Are patriots, and state-approved behaviors
Are considered patriotic.
Those who diverge from the norm
Are considered unpatriotic,
And they are labeled
Not real Americans,
Or whatever
Labeling phrase the
Politically Correct
Thought Police
Coins; their goals being
To incite ostracism from others
And stunt enlightening conversation.
Familiar, familial imagery is often invoked
By the elite to give the illusion that
The government-governed relationship
Is equal to the parent-child connection.
Notice the government calls itself: “Uncle Sam”
Uncle Sam was created by
“Our Founding Fathers”
Who in turn were inspired by
“Lady Liberty” who with
Raised flag and bared breast
Leads the charge into battle,
Her children protecting
“The Motherland”
(“Fatherland” for Germans and Russians)
A better name for government is Big Brother
And Big Brother loves you
And protects you
And is always watching you.
We have covered the symptoms of our illness,
And we are ready to receive our medicine.
Follow these six simple rules to avoid faulty language:
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
If you follow these rules,
You will be equipped
With the tools to spot
Manipulative language,
And be well-armed to
Actively engage in the
War of ideas,
And to perform
The revolutionary act
Of telling the truth
In these times of
Universal deceit.
