To quote my favorite philosopher, Robin Williams “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world”. For as long as the civilized world has existed, there have been words. They can be used for both written and spoken language to not just communicate with others, but to cultivate ideas, rhetorical skills, logic, and individuality. A fascinating thing about words is that there can be multiple words that mean the exact same thing and vice versa. As time goes on, “new” words and new meaning to words get added to our dictionary every year. However, in the book “1984” by George Orwell, we see that in Oceana, their dictionary keeps getting smaller and smaller as they keep destroying words that the Party finds to be “unnecessary”. …show more content…
He contends that the destruction of words is necessary for narrowing the range of thought, making it impossible for thought crimes to be committed and the only thing that may and can be communicated are slogans that support Big Brother. To justify this reasoning, Syme asks two important questions about language: why do we need synonyms and why do we need antonyms? Ultimately, if you’ve read the book 1984 like I did, you’ll know that the reasoning for the government exercising total power and control over its citizens is just for the sake of power and control, or in other words because they can. So hypothetically trying to persuade Syme about why destroying words is wrong is pointless. Instead, I’ll answer the questions Syme lays out in 1984 about synonyms and antonyms and explain why you the reader should realize their importance, and especially why words, in general, are of great