Quotes & Sayings About Doublespeak

Let us examine briefly a formula that has had some currency in our day: "The Bible is the Word of God, which errs." Now let us expunge some of these words. Remove "The Bible is," so that the formula reads: "The Word of God, which errs." Now erase "The Word of" and "which." The result is "God errs." To say the Bible is the Word of God that errs is clearly to indulge in impious doublespeak. If it is the Word of God, it does not err. If it errs, it is not the Word of God. — R.C. Sproul

The pitch we used to convince companies to spend $50 million bucks for one of our planes was that it wasn't simply a means of transportation; oh no - it was 'a productivity tool'. It allowed an executive to make good use of his travel time and a relaxed and refreshed executive could seal the deal much more effectively than his travel-worn counterpart. Yeah, right. You can always justify any obscene luxury on the grounds of productivity... — Joseph Finder

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace. — George W. Bush

Knowledge, then, can be dangerous because a rational mind may be compelled to use it in rational ways, allowing malevolent or careless speakers to commandeer our faculties against us. This makes the expressive power of language a mixed blessing: it lets us learn what we want to know, but it also lets us learn what we don't want to know. Language is not just a window into human nature but a fistula: an open wound through which our innards are exposed to an infectious world. It's not surprising that we expect people to sheathe their words in politeness and innuendo and other forms of doublespeak. — Steven Pinker

Fair and balanced is doublespeak for bite-out-chunks-of-truth until only irrelevancy is left, byte-sized, entertaining irrelevancy. — Larisa Alexandrovna

The Cold War had become a battlefield marked by doublespeak. Disguise, distortion, and deception were accepted as reality. Truth was promised in a serum. — Annie Jacobsen

If Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist wasn't addicted to the pain-killing drug his doctor prescribed, but instead it was just that the drug had 'established an interrelationship with the body, such that if the drug is removed precipitously, there is a reaction,' you needn't question that his decisions might have been influenced by his drug addiction. — William Lutz

Commercials are not the only junk food in the speech market - indeed, when compared to shallow news reporting, vacuous television shows, or political doublespeak, commercials are not even the most harmful to mental health. — Rodney A. Smolla

But there's this thing in her voice, like what my mom called "doublespeak." Saying one thing and meaning another. Aunt Nora told me it was leftover from English rule. She said, "That's the only good thing to ever come of colonialism, Kevin. The Irish can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip. — Brian Malloy

I'm tired of being scared, and I know you are too. Not that there isn't alot to be scared of in this world today, between the non-stop headlines about wars and nuclear power plants and terrorists and assasinations and civil unrest and economic uncertainty and political doublespeak and insane weather and an environment that's becoming unhealthier by the day. But a point comes when it's too much to deal with, and thinking about it accomplishes nothing more than sending you to bed with a cold cloth on your head. — Sylvia Browne

Hatespeak is usually more honest than lovespeak, and it's always better than doublespeak. — Jim Goad