10 February 2016

Double-Speak // Politicians Say One Thing + Data Says Another

How many times has Mesa Mayor John Giles said "Things are great" ??
Is that just an over-blown and vague adjective to wishfully describe the current State-of-the-City or just plain Double-Speak?
 In "1984" Orwell introduced us to the words doublethink and newspeak. A word he didn't use - but which combines the two - is doublespeak. Doublespeak is saying one thing and meaning another, usually its opposite.

DOUBLESPEAK IS NEWSPEAK DOUBLETHINK. Got it?
There is a thriving industry in constructing words without explicit meaning but with particular connotations.
Challenges, anyone? Or how about Opportunities? Doublespeak is often used by politicians for the advancement of their agenda. The Doublespeak Award is an "ironic tribute to public speakers who have perpetuated language that is grossly deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing, or self-centered." No awards for that here in Mesa, but certain people are in contention to get one.
Hence - following the logic in these endeavors if there is any sense to do that, education is necessary to recognize and combat against doublespeak-use effectively.
Your MesaZona blogger got a good giggle the other day in an email reply from the Mayor's Office when it was asked to supply statistics [specific names of companies and number of jobs and whether part-time and full-time, that were actually paying salaries to employees that were hired lastnyear not projections for job creation] . . . the answer:
"We use a third party proprietary database to obtain our numbers [name deleted by blogger] . . . You're welcome to contact them for information about their process. Thanks"
 

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