From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: Bush wins doublespeak award
Date: 23 Nov 92 14:35:14 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: erics@infoserv.com (Eric S. Smith)

In article <D2150056.jasl3x@erics.infoserv.com>, erics@infoserv (Eric S. Smith) writes:
>> 'And what of Quayle? Well, the third-place Doublespeak Award went to
>> 'all politicians who exploited the term "family values" this year.

>> Well, who won second place?

>Not quite a Republican sweep, second place was awarded to both the
>Republican *and* the Democratic parties, for reasons that are easily
>surmised.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a summary from the November 20th issue of the Champaign-Urbana
"News-Gazette" that I received in e-mail:

    Doublespeak Awards Find Fertile Ground in Politics
    ==================================================

    (Champaign-Urbana, November 20, 1992) -- Doublespeak has just
    about driven William Lutz to the brink of -- "mental activity at
    the margins."

    That euphemism was just one gem discovered by the Rutgers
    University English professor for the 1992 Doublespeak Awards,
    announced today in Urbana by the National Council of Teachers of
    English.

    The annual awards -- intended to call attention to language that
    is "grossly deceptive, evasive and euphemistic" -- were bestowed
    during the council's convention in Louisville, Kentucky.


    Among the nominees:

    *** Instead of being laid off, workers are "involuntarily
    terminated" as companies "reposition," "reshape," "realign" and
    "reduce duplication" through a "release of resources," "permanent
    downsizing" or "payroll adjustment."

    *** Along with other newfound freedoms, the people of Moscow can
    now visit "intimacy salons" -- sex shops, as they are known in
    other countries.

    *** U.S. soldiers should pay close attention to the Army's
    warning that exposure to nerve gas may cause "immediate permanent
    incapacitation" -- that is, death.

    *** Students who stand still are now in a state of "spatial
    anchoring."

    *** Removing books from the library isn't censorship, just a case
    of "weeding" books.

    *** Colleges don't drop failing students, they "expedite their
    progress toward alternate life pursuits."

    *** Electric fans are now "high-velocity, multipurpose air
    circulators."

    *** Radio and television commercials are now referred to as
    "value minutes."

    *** A U.S. Department of Energy nuclear fuel dump is a
    "monitored retrievable storage site."

    *** The Environmental Protection Agency now refers to acid rain
    as "wet deposition."

    *** Politicians in Canada engage in "reality augmentation" but
    would never say that they'd lied.


    And the winners are:

    3rd place -- All the politicians who put the phrase "family
    values" at the center of the 1992 political campaign. An
    ambiguous and vague phrase, it "exploited intense feelings
    aroused by the idea of the family to celebrate their [i.e.
    politicos] own idea of what constitutes the best domestic
    arrangement."

    2nd place -- The Republican and Democratic parties for "claiming
    they are for reforming the way political campaigns are financed,
    even while they continue to seek and accept large contributions
    from special-interest groups, corporations, and wealthy
    individuals."

    1st place -- President Bush for various novel uses of language,
    including calling for "less proliferation of all different kinds
    of weapons" as the Department of Defense reversed a 25-year
    policy and began supporting arms trade shows around the world.


    Finally, the 1992 George Orwell Award for Distinguished
    Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language went to
    Donald Barlett and James Steele, authors of "America: What Went
    Wrong." The authors received the award for cutting through "the
    political and economic doublespeak used to justify the economic
    policy of the 1980s" to reveal "who is and isn't paying the price
    in the '90s."
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu) "[George Bush] is a man
 who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." --Jim Hightower
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle