1989 C-SPAN Interview: William Lutz – “Doublespeak“

2015 Ahamo Journalism Excellence Pick: Interview with William D. Lutz, an American linguist who specializes in the use of plain language and the avoidance of deceptive language known as Doublespeak. The interview discusses his essay “The World of Doublespeak“ as well as his book “Doublespeak“. Both the original essay and the book describe the four different types of doublespeak and the social dangers: euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated language. William D. Lutz currently serves as the third chairman of the Doublespeak Committee and has since 1975. In 1989, both his book, “Doublespeak“ and, under his editorship, the Doublespeak Committee’s third book, “Beyond Nineteen Eighty-Four“, were published. Lutz is also the former editor of the Quarterly Review of Doublespeak. Although the review no longer exists, it examined different ways that Doublespeak polluted the public vocabulary with different phrases, words, as well as different usages of words that were designed to obscure the meaning of plain English. The book, Beyond Nineteen Eighty-Four, consists of 220 pages and eighteen articles contributed by long-time Committee members and others whose body of work has made important contributions to understandings about language, as well as a bibliography of 103 sources on doublespeak. Lutz is one of the main contributors to the committee as well as promoting the term “doublespeak“ to a mass audience so as to inform them of the deceptive qualities that doublespeak contains. He mentions: There is more to being an effective consumer of language than just expressing dismay at dangling modifiers, faulty subject and verb agreement, or questionable usage. All who use language should be concerned whether statements and facts agree, whether language is, in Orwell’s words ’largely the defense of the indefensible’ and whether language ’is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.’“