Newspeak Lexicon

Newspeak Lexicon: A Collection of Terms From Orwell’s “1984″

1. Atomic Wars - In “1984,” these wars began in the 1950’s and devestated much of the world.  It was out of the chaos of these wars that Party emerged and seized control.
2. Big Brother - the leader of an authoritarian state or movement: an all-powerful government or organization monitoring and directing people’s actions [data banks that tell Big Brother all about us -- Herbert Brucker]
3. Crimestop - “The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short….protective stupidity.”- George Orwell
4. Doublethink - Reality Control. The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accept both of them. An excellent example of doublethink in modern society is the “war on drugs.”
5. Facecrime - A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense.
6. Goodthink(er) – The act of unquestionable loyalty to the principles of Newspeak and the Party.
7. Hate week - Week in which Oceanian citizens all attend rallies and parades to inflame hatred of Party enemies and heighten their efforts on behalf of Oceania.
8. Ingsoc - English Socialism”[Ingsoc] rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism.” – Goldstein
9. Memory Hole – A system of pipes, similar to pneumatic tubes, which were used to destroy documents. A document stuffed in the memory hole would be conveniently whisked away to the furnaces below – quickly & easily wiped from history.
10. Newspeak - The basic idea behind Newspeak was to remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple dichotomies (pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, good thoughts and thoughtcrimes) which reinforce the total dominance of the State.
11. Oldthink – The way of the last government not to be uttered in Oceania by fear of death
12. Proles – A member of the Proletariat. Approximately 85% of Oceania’s population are in this class. Members of the party viewed them as animals. They are not as rigidly observed as members of the party, and very few (if any) have “telescreens” in their home.
13. Reclamation Centre – A colony for children made homeless during the Atomic Wars.
14. Speakwrite – Voice recognition machines.
15. Thinkpol – The “Thought Police.”  What a scary thought, huh.  Thought Police would arrest and lobotomize or kill anyone committing a thoughtcrime.
16. Unperson – Person that has been erased from existence by the government for breaking the law in some way.