Summary Of William Lutz's The World Of Doublespeak

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In his essay “The World of Doublespeak,” William Lutz define doublespeak as “a blanket term for language which makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant attractive, or at least tolerable” (2013). Lutz goes on to claim “It is language which avoids, shifts, or denies responsibility” (2013). He explains the purpose of doublespeak is to “mislead, distort, deceive, inflate” (2103). Based on many of his examples, such as wording an airplane as an airplane that has had “uncontrolled contact with the ground,” or referring to a city slum as the resident of the “fiscal underachievers,” I feel he may overstate his own definition of doublespeak. While, the play on words in these examples does attempt to deceive the read and