Talk:Orwellian

Orwellian, the case against

I have put back what I consider the most important point about the term Orwellian; Orwell would have hated it. The problem with this is that Orwell never got the chance to find his name taken in vain and so any suggestion that Orwell hated Orwellian will be easily regarded as interpretation.

I am sure Orwell might be proud that he is still read and for other features of his legacy but judging by his writings it is my belief the he would be deeply embarrassed by the frequent use of the word. As I said I can not cite Orwell as saying 'I hate the word Orwellian' but I can cite Politics and the English Language, Propaganda and Demotic Speech and numerous other snippets on his dislike of the way words are used. MeltBanana 01:48, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Orwellian has come to universally mean what it means. There's nothing to be done about it. Sorry, George. (Oops, I mean Sorry, Eric Arthur Blair.) (The negativity is not nice to his name, but, ironically, that's not really his name.) In his novel, 1984, he extrapolated a dismal future world where totalitarianism and injustice are entrenched by manipulative language (among other evils), examples of which he masterfully crafted and thoroughly explained. In other writing, he criticized many examples of manipulated language. If he offered positive examples of honest language, they're not nearly as well known or suspected. Though Orwellian names the hypocrisy and deceit which he despised, we at least think of Orwell as one who taught us to be aware of it, to watch for it in ourselves and others, and hopefully weaken its influence. I think he would not be disappointed by the coinage of the word.

On the other hand, what you added to the article in 2005 is quite agreeable: "It seems unlikely that Orwell would have approved of many of the uses to which his pseudonym is applied. The loose definition of the term and the often poor correlation between the real-life situations people describe as Orwellian and his own dystopian fiction leave the use of the adjective at best inexact and frequently politically inaccurate." If "Orwellian" is overused and misapplied, it loses meaning and blocks thought. Orwell would certainly criticize that. It's a perfectly cromulent word. What other word could take its place? Its possible overuse does not de-define it. A876 (talk) 05:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Cleaning

There were alot of split sentences and formatting errors. I cleaned up as best as I could. D00d123 (talk) 21:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know enough about this subject to edit anything, but I wanted to point out this sentence fragment which confused me: "A counter-point to his previous work, immediately after his return from Spain, Homage to Catalonia." --Headybrew (talk) 21:45, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Countries in See Also

I'm removing the countries from the See Also section. Cuba, North Korea, and the United States are all in there. I fail to see how any of these relate to the article other than that the editor thinks the country is "Orwellian". Mbarbier (talk) 19:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher's England

Isn't putting that in the "See Also" section sort of like calling Thatcher a facist? Don't get me wrong, I do think Thatcher was a facist, but I don't think my opinion (or anyone else's) belongs on Wikipedia.TorontoLRT (talk) 00:53, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I've removed it, and redirected the article, which was just a POV essay in any case. Robofish (talk) 00:06, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Thatcher was anti-fascist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.87.146.68 (talk) 18:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

History of the term

Does anyone know who coined the term "Orwellian"? Since this is a page about a word (rather than the author George Orwell) it might help to clarify the distinction by treating the term as an historical phenomenon seperate from the author's own writings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.198.71.4 (talk) 20:52, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Disputed

I've just been listening to a radio interview with Christopher Hitchens in which he says that there are three distinct uses of the term "Orwellian", but didn't really catch what they were. This page, therefore, seems to be seriously incomplete. Perhaps his book "Why Orwell Matters" would be a good source for this page. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:14, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Reference to this page in hansard

See http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/Speeches/0/1/1/49HansS_20101118_00000235-Curran-Clare-Local-Government-Act-2002-Amendment.htm