A few blanket words
covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them.
covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them.
Orwell - 1984
He
made a halfhearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down,
turned, and made off in the opposite direction. When he
had gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not
crowded, but already he could not distinguish her. Any one
of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers. Perhaps
her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable
from behind.
At the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do mean
it. ' He had meant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished
it. He had wished that she and not he should be delivered
over to the
Something changed in the music that trickled from the
telescreen. A cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came
into it. And then — perhaps it was not happening, perhaps
it was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound — a
voice was singing:
'Under the spreading chestnut tree
370 1984
/ sold you and you sold me '
The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed
that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle.
He took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew
not less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank.
But it had become the element he swam in. It was his life,
his death, and his resurrection. It was gin that sank him
into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every
morning. When he woke, seldom before eleven hundred,
with gummed-up eyelids and fiery mouth and a back that
seemed to be broken, it would have been impossible even
to rise from the horizontal if it had not been for the bottle
and teacup placed beside the bed overnight. Through the
midday hours he sat with glazed face, the bottle handy, lis-
tening to the telescreen. From fifteen to closing-time he
was a fixture in the Chestnut Tree. No one cared what he
did any longer, no whistle woke him, no telescreen admon-
ished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week, he went to a
dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of Truth and
did a little work, or what was called work. He had been ap-
pointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had
sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing
with minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the
Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were
engaged in producing something called an Interim Report,
but what it was that they were reporting on he had never
definitely found out. It was something to do with the ques-
tion of whether commas should be placed inside brackets,
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 371
or outside. There were four others on the committee, all of
them persons similar to himself. There were days when they
assembled and then promptly dispersed again, frankly ad-
mitting to one another that there was not really anything to
be done. But there were other days when they settled down
to their work almost eagerly, making a tremendous show
of entering up their minutes and drafting long memoranda
which were never finished — when the argument as to what
they were supposedly arguing about grew extraordinarily
involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling over definitions,
enormous digressions, quarrels — threats, even, to appeal to
higher authority. And then suddenly the life would go out
of them and they would sit round the table looking at one
another with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow.
The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised
his head again. The bulletin! But no, they were merely
changing the music. He had the map of Africa behind his
eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a black
arrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow hori-
zontally eastward, across the tail of the first. As though for
reassurance he looked up at the imperturbable face in the
portrait. Was it conceivable that the second arrow did not
even exist?
His interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of
gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move.
Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because
Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a
candle-lit room with a vast white- counterpaned bed, and
himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking
1984
a dice-box, and laughing excitedly. His mother was sitting
opposite him and also laughing.
It must have been about a month before she disappeared.
It was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hun-
ger in his belly was forgotten and his earlier affection for
her had temporarily revived. He remembered the day well,
a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed down
the window-pane and the light indoors was too dull to read
by. The boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped
bedroom became unbearable. Winston whined and griz-
zled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room
pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscot-
ing until the neighbours banged on the wall, while the
younger child wailed intermittently. In the end his mother
said, 'Now be good, and I'll buy you a toy. A lovely toy —
you'll love it'; and then she had gone out in the rain, to a
little general shop which was still sporadically open nearby,
and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit
of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell
of the damp cardboard. It was a miserable outfit. The board
was cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill- cut that
they would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the
thing sulkily and without interest. But then his mother lit a
piece of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon
he was wildly excited and shouting with laughter as the tid-
dly-winks climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came
slithering down the snakes again, almost to the starting-
point. They played eight games, winning four each. His tiny
sister, too young to understand what the game was about,
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had sat propped up against a bolster, laughing because the
others were laughing. For a whole afternoon they had all
been happy together, as in his earlier childhood.
He pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false
memory. He was troubled by false memories occasionally.
They did not matter so long as one knew them for what they
were. Some things had happened, others had not happened.
He turned back to the chessboard and picked up the white
knight again. Almost in the same instant it dropped on to
the board with a clatter. He had started as though a pin had
run into him.
A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the bul-
letin! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet-call
preceded the news. A sort of electric drill ran through the
cafe. Even the waiters had started and pricked up their
ears.
The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of
noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the tele-
screen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a
roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the
streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was
issuing from the telescreen to realize that it had all hap-
pened, as he had foreseen; a vast seaborne armada had
secretly assembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the
white arrow tearing across the tail of the black. Fragments
of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din:
'Vast strategic manoeuvre — perfect co-ordination — utter
rout — half a million prisoners — complete demoraliza-
tion — control of the whole of Africa — bring the war within
1984
measurable distance of its end — victory — greatest victory
in human history — victory, victory, victory! '
Under the table Winston's feet made convulsive move-
ments. He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind
he was running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds
outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the
portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the
world! The rock against which the hordes of Asia dashed
themselves in vain! He thought how ten minutes ago — yes,
only ten minutes — there had still been equivocation in
his heart as he wondered whether the news from the front
would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was more than a Eur-
asian army that had perished! Much had changed in him
since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the final, in-
dispensable, healing change had never happened, until this
moment.
The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its
tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting
outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning
back to their work. One of them approached with the gin
bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no at-
tention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or
cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love,
with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in
the public dock, confessing everything, implicating every-
body. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with
the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at
his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had tak-
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en him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the
dark moustache. cruel, needless misunderstanding! O
stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-
scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was
all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.
He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
THE END
APPENDIX.
The Principles of Newspeak
Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and
had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc,
or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet
anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of commu-
nication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles
in 'The Times' were written in it, but this was a TOUR DE
FORCE which could only be carried out by a specialist. It
was expected that Newspeak would have finally supersed-
ed Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by
about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadi-
ly, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and
grammatical constructions more and more in their every-
day speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the
Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was
a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words
and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed
later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in
the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are con-
cerned here.
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a
376 1984
medium of expression for the world-view and mental hab-
its proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other
modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when
Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak
forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging
from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthink-
able, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its
vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and of-
ten very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party
member could properly wish to express, while excluding
all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at
them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the
invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating unde-
sirable words and by stripping such words as remained of
unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all second-
ary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word
FREE still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in
such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or "This field
is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of
'politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and in-
tellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and
were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the
suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vo-
cabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that
could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak
was designed not to extend but to DIMINISH the range of
thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting
the choice of words down to a minimum.
Newspeak was founded on the English language as we
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now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when
not containing newly- created words, would be barely intel-
ligible to an English-speaker of our own day Newspeak
words were divided into three distinct classes, known as
the A vocabulary, the B vocabulary (also called compound
words), and the C vocabulary. It will be simpler to discuss
each class separately, but the grammatical peculiarities of
the language can be dealt with in the section devoted to the
A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three
categories.
THE A VOCABULARY. The A vocabulary consisted
of the words needed for the business of everyday life — for
such things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's
clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, garden-
ing, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely
of words that we already possess words like HIT, RUN,
DOG, TREE, SUGAR, HOUSE, FIELD— but in compari-
son with the present-day English vocabulary their number
was extremely small, while their meanings were far more
rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had
been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a
Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound
expressing ONE clearly understood concept. It would have
been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary
purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was
intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usu-
ally involving concrete objects or physical actions.
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding pe-
culiarities. The first of these was an almost complete
378 1984
interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any
word in the language (in principle this applied even to very
abstract words such as IF or WHEN) could be used either
as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and
the noun form, when they were of the same root, there was
never any variation, this rule of itself involving the de-
struction of many archaic forms. The word THOUGHT,
for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was tak-
en by THINK, which did duty for both noun and verb. No
etymological principle was followed here: in some cases it
was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in oth-
er cases the verb. Even where a noun and verb of kindred
meaning were not etymologically connected, one or other
of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example,
no such word as CUT, its meaning being sufficiently cov-
ered by the noun-verb KNIFE. Adjectives were formed by
adding the suffix -FUL to the noun-verb, and adverbs by
adding -WISE. Thus for example, SPEEDFUL meant 'rapid'
and SPEEDWISE meant 'quickly. Certain of our present-
day adjectives, such as GOOD, STRONG, BIG, BLACK,
SOFT, were retained, but their total number was very small.
There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival
meaning could be arrived at by adding -FUL to a noun-verb.
None of the now- existing adverbs was retained, except for a
very few already ending in -WISE: the -WISE termination
was invariable. The word WELL, for example, was replaced
by GOODWISE.
In addition, any word — this again applied in principle
to every word in the language — could be negatived by add-
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ing the affix UN-, or could be strengthened by the affix
PLUS-, or, for still greater emphasis, DOUBLEPLUS-. Thus,
for example, UNCOLD meant 'warm', while PLUSCOLD
and DOUBLEPLUSCOLD meant, respectively, 'very cold'
and 'superlatively cold'. It was also possible, as in present-
day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by
prepositional affixes such as ANTE-, POST-, UP-, DOWN-,
etc. By such methods it was found possible to bring about
an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance,
the word GOOD, there was no need for such a word as BAD,
since the required meaning was equally well — indeed, bet-
ter — expressed by UNGOOD. All that was necessary, in
any case where two words formed a natural pair of oppo-
sites, was to decide which of them to suppress. DARK, for
example, could be replaced by UNLIGHT, or LIGHT by
UNDARK, according to preference.
The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak gram-
mar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which
are mentioned below all inflexions followed the same rules.
Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were
the same and ended in -ED. The preterite of STEAL was
STEALED, the preterite of THINK was THINKED, and
so on throughout the language, all such forms as SWAM,
GAVE, BROUGHT, SPOKE, TAKEN, etc. , being abolished.
All plurals were made by adding -S or -ES as the case might
be. The plurals OF MAN, OX, LIFE, were MANS, OXES,
LIFES. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by
adding -ER, -EST (GOOD, GOODER, GOODEST), ir-
regular forms and the MORE, MOST formation being
380 1984
suppressed.
The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect
irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstra-
tive adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed
their ancient usage, except that WHOM had been scrapped
as unnecessary, and the SHALL, SHOULD tenses had been
dropped, all their uses being covered by WILL and WOULD.
There were also certain irregularities in word-formation
arising out of the need for rapid and easy speech. A word
which was difficult to utter, or was liable to be incorrectly
heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad word; occasionally
therefore, for the sake of euphony, extra letters were insert-
ed into a word or an archaic formation was retained. But
this need made itself felt chiefly in connexion with the B
vocabulary. WHY so great an importance was attached to
ease of pronunciation will be made clear later in this essay.
THE B VOCABULARY. The B vocabulary consisted of
words which had been deliberately constructed for political
purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every
case a political implication, but were intended to impose
a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them.
Without a full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc
it was difficult to use these words correctly. In some cases
they could be translated into Oldspeak, or even into words
taken from the A vocabulary, but this usually demanded
a long paraphrase and always involved the loss of certain
overtones. The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, of-
ten packing whole ranges of ideas into a few syllables, and
at the same time more accurate and forcible than ordinary
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 381
language.
The B words were in all cases compound words. [Com-
pound words such as SPEAKWRITE, were of course to be
found in the A vocabulary, but these were merely convenient
abbreviations and had no special ideologcal colour. ] They
consisted of two or more words, or portions of words, weld-
ed together in an easily pronounceable form. The resulting
amalgam was always a noun-verb, and inflected according
to the ordinary rules. To take a single example: the word
GOODTHINK, meaning, very roughly, 'orthodoxy, or, if
one chose to regard it as a verb, 'to think in an orthodox
manner'. This inflected as follows: noun-verb, GOOD-
THINK; past tense and past participle, GOODTHINKED;
present participle, GOOD-THINKING; adjective, GOOD-
THINKFUL; adverb, GOODTHINKWISE; verbal noun,
GOODTHINKER.
The B words were not constructed on any etymological
plan. The words of which they were made up could be any
parts of speech, and could be placed in any order and muti-
lated in any way which made them easy to pronounce while
indicating their derivation. In the word CRIMETHINK
(thought crime), for instance, the THINK came second,
whereas in THINKPOL (Thought Police) it came first,
and in the latter word POLICE had lost its second syllable.
Because of the great difficulty in securing euphony, irregu-
lar formations were commoner in the B vocabulary than
in the A vocabulary. For example, the adjective forms of
MINITRUE, MINIPAX, and MINILUV were, respectively,
MINITRUTHFUL, MINIPEACEFUL, and MINILOVELY,
382 1984
simply because -TRUEFUL, -PAXFUL, and -LOVEFUL
were slightly awkward to pronounce. In principle, however,
all B words could inflect, and all inflected in exactly the
same way.
Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings,
barely intelligible to anyone who had not mastered the
language as a whole. Consider, for example, such a typical
sentence from a 'Times' leading article as OLDTHINKERS
UNBELLYFEEL INGSOC. The shortest rendering that one
could make of this in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose
ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full
emotional understanding of the principles of English So-
cialism. ' But this is not an adequate translation. To begin
with, in order to grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak
sentence quoted above, one would have to have a clear idea
of what is meant by INGSOC. And in addition, only a per-
son thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the
full force of the word BELLYFEEL, which implied a blind,
enthusiastic acceptance difficult to imagine today; or of the
word OLDTHINK, which was inextricably mixed up with
the idea of wickedness and decadence. But the special func-
tion of certain Newspeak words, of which OLDTHINK
was one, was not so much to express meanings as to de-
stroy them. These words, necessarily few in number, had
had their meanings extended until they contained within
themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were
sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, could
now be scrapped and forgotten. The greatest difficulty fac-
ing the compilers of the Newspeak Dictionary was not to
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 383
invent new words, but, having invented them, to make sure
what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of
words they cancelled by their existence.
As we have already seen in the case of the word FREE,
words which had once borne a heretical meaning were
sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only
with the undesirable meanings purged out of them. Count-
less other words such as HONOUR, JUSTICE, MORALITY,
INTERNATIONALISM, DEMOCRACY, SCIENCE, and
RELIGION had simply ceased to exist.
A few blanket words
covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. All
words grouping themselves round the concepts of liber-
ty and equality, for instance, were contained in the single
word CRIMETHINK, while all words grouping themselves
round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were
contained in the single word OLDTHINK. Greater preci-
sion would have been dangerous. What was required in a
Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient
Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all na-
tions other than his own worshipped 'false gods'. He did
not need to know that these gods were called Baal, Osiris,
Moloch, Ashtaroth, and the like: probably the less he knew
about them the better for his orthodoxy. He knew Jehovah
and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore,
that all gods with other names or other attributes were false
gods. In somewhat the same way, the party member knew
what constituted right conduct, and in exceedingly vague,
generalized terms he knew what kinds of departure from
it were possible. His sexual life, for example, was entirely
384 1984
regulated by the two Newspeak words SEXCRIME (sex-
ual immorality) and GOODSEX (chastity). SEXCRIME
covered all sexual misdeeds whatever. It covered fornica-
tion, adultery, homosexuality, and other perversions, and,
in addition, normal intercourse practised for its own sake.
There was no need to enumerate them separately, since they
were all equally culpable, and, in principle, all punishable
by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of scientific
and technical words, it might be necessary to give special-
ized names to certain sexual aberrations, but the ordinary
citizen had no need of them. He knew what was meant by
GOODSEX — that is to say, normal intercourse between
man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children,
and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman: all
else was SEXCRIME. In Newspeak it was seldom possible to
follow a heretical thought further than the perception that
it WAS heretical: beyond that point the necessary words
were nonexistent.
No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral.
A great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance,
as JOYCAMP (forced-labour camp) or MINIPAX Minis-
try of Peace, i. e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact
opposite of what they appeared to mean. Some words, on
the other hand, displayed a frank and contemptuous un-
derstanding of the real nature of Oceanic society. An
example was PROLEFEED, meaning the rubbishy enter-
tainment and spurious news which the Party handed out
to the masses. Other words, again, were ambivalent, hav-
ing the connotation 'good' when applied to the Party and
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 385
'bad' when applied to its enemies. But in addition there were
great numbers of words which at first sight appeared to be
mere abbreviations and which derived their ideological co-
lour not from their meaning, but from their structure.
So far as it could be contrived, everything that had or
might have political significance of any kind was fitted into
the B vocabulary. The name of every organization, or body
of people, or doctrine, or country, or institution, or public
building, was invariably cut down into the familiar shape;
that is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest
number of syllables that would preserve the original deri-
vation. In the Ministry of Truth, for example, the Records
Department, in which Winston Smith worked, was called
RECDEP, the Fiction Department was called FICDEP, the
Teleprogrammes Department was called TELEDEP, and so
on. This was not done solely with the object of saving time.
Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, tele-
scoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic
features of political language; and it had been noticed that
the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most
marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organi-
zations. Examples were such words as NAZI, GESTAPO,
COMINTERN, INPRECORR, AGITPROP. In the begin-
ning the practice had been adopted as it were instinctively,
but in Newspeak it was used with a conscious purpose. It
was perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one nar-
rowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting out most of
the associations that would otherwise cling to it. The words
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, for instance, call up
386 1984
a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red
flags, barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The
word COMINTERN, on the other hand, suggests merely a
tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doc-
trine. It refers to something almost as easily recognized,
and as limited in purpose, as a chair or a table. COMIN-
TERN is a word that can be uttered almost without taking
thought, whereas COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL is
a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least mo-
mentarily. In the same way, the associations called up by a
word like MINITRUE are fewer and more controllable than
those called up by MINISTRY OF TRUTH. This accounted
not only for the habit of abbreviating whenever possible, but
also for the almost exaggerated care that was taken to make
every word easily pronounceable.
In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration
other than exactitude of meaning. Regularity of grammar
was always sacrificed to it when it seemed necessary. And
rightly so, since what was required, above all for political
purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable mean-
ing which could be uttered rapidly and which roused the
minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind. The words of the
B vocabulary even gained in force from the fact that nearly
all of them were very much alike. Almost invariably these
words— GOODTHINK, MINIPAX, PROLEFEED, SEX-
CRIME, JOYCAMP, INGSOC, BELLYFEEL, THINKPOL,
and countless others — were words of two or three syllables,
with the stress distributed equally between the first syllable
and the last. The use of them encouraged a gabbling style of
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 387
speech, at once staccato and monotonous. And this was ex-
actly what was aimed at. The intention was to make speech,
and especially speech on any subject not ideologically neu-
tral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness. For
the purposes of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or
sometimes necessary, to reflect before speaking, but a Party
member called upon to make a political or ethical judge-
ment should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as
automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets. His
training fitted him to do this, the language gave him an al-
most foolproof instrument, and the texture of the words,
with their harsh sound and a certain wilful ugliness which
was in accord with the spirit of Ingsoc, assisted the process
still further.
So did the fact of having very few words to choose from.
Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny,
and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised.
Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other languages
in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every
year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area
of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought. Ulti-
mately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from
the larynx without involving the higher brain centres at
all. This aim was frankly admitted in the Newspeak word
DUCKSPEAK, meaning 'to quack like a duck'. Like various
other words in the B vocabulary, DUCKSPEAK was ambiv-
alent in meaning. Provided that the opinions which were
quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but
praise, and when 'The Times' referred to one of the orators
1984
of the Party as a DOUBLEPLUSGOOD DUCKSPEAKER it
was paying a warm and valued compliment.
THE C VOCABULARY. The C vocabulary was supple-
mentary to the others and consisted entirely of scientific
and technical terms. These resembled the scientific terms
in use today, and were constructed from the same roots, but
the usual care was taken to define them rigidly and strip
them of undesirable meanings. They followed the same
grammatical rules as the words in the other two vocabu-
laries. Very few of the C words had any currency either in
everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific work-
er or technician could find all the words he needed in the
list devoted to his own speciality, but he seldom had more
than a smattering of the words occurring in the other lists.
Only a very few words were common to all lists, and there
was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a
habit of mind, or a method of thought, irrespective of its
particular branches. There was, indeed, no word for 'Sci-
ence', any meaning that it could possibly bear being already
sufficiently covered by the word INGSOC.
From the foregoing account it will be seen that in New-
speak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very
low level, was well-nigh impossible. It was of course pos-
sible to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a species of
blasphemy. It would have been possible, for example, to say
BIG BROTHER IS UNGOOD. But this statement, which
to an orthodox ear merely conveyed a self-evident absur-
dity, could not have been sustained by reasoned argument,
because the necessary words were not available. Ideas inim-
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 389
ical to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a vague wordless
form, and could only be named in very broad terms which
lumped together and condemned whole groups of heresies
without defining them in doing so. One could, in fact, only
use Newspeak for unorthodox purposes by illegitimately
translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For ex-
ample, ALL MANS ARE EQUAL was a possible Newspeak
sentence, but only in the same sense in which ALL MEN
ARE REDHAIRED is a possible Oldspeak sentence. It did
not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed a palpa-
ble untruth — i. e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or
strength. The concept of political equality no longer existed,
and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged
out of the word EQUAL. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still
the normal means of communication, the danger theo-
retically existed that in using Newspeak words one might
remember their original meanings. In practice it was not
difficult for any person well grounded in DOUBLETHINK
to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even
the possibility of such a lapse would have vaished. A per-
son growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would
no more know that EQUAL had once had the second-
ary meaning of 'politically equal', or that FREE had once
meant 'intellectually free', than for instance, a person who
had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary
meanings attaching to QUEEN and ROOK. There would
be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his
power to commit, simply because they were nameless and
therefore unimaginable. And it was to be foreseen that with
1984
the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics of
Newspeak would become more and more pronounced — its
words growing fewer and fewer, their meanings more and
more rigid, and the chance of putting them to improper
uses always diminishing.
When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded,
the last link with the past would have been severed. History
had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature
of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored,
and so long as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak
it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments,
even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible
and untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any pas-
sage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to
some technical process or some very simple everyday ac-
tion, or was already orthodox (GOODTHINKFUL would
be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this
meant that no book written before approximately 1960
could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature
could only be subjected to ideological translation — that is,
alteration in sense as well as language. Take for example
the well-known passage from the Declaration of Indepen-
dence:
WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT,
THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY
ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN
INALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 391
THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE
INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, DERIVING THEIR POWERS
FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED. THAT
WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES
DESTRUCTIVE OF THOSE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE
PEOPLE WALTER OR ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE
NEW GOVERNMENT. . .
It would have been quite impossible to render this into
Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The
nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the
whole passage up in the single word CRIMETHINK. A full
translation could only be an ideological translation, where-
by Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on
absolute government.
A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, al-
ready being transformed in this way. Considerations of
prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of cer-
tain historical figures, while at the same time bringing
their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc.
Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, By-
ron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of
translation: when the task had been completed, their orig-
inal writings, with all else that survived of the literature
of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were
a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that
they would be finished before the first or second decade of
the twenty-first century. There were also large quantities of
merely utilitarian literature — indispensable technical man-
1984
uals, and the like — that had to be treated in the same way. It
was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work
of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been
fixed for so late a date as 2050.
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Alexander Merow
Prey World
Citizen 1-564398B-278843
Novel
Parti
Prey World
Chapters
Foreword 5
Citizen 1-564398B-278843 7
Automated Trial 23
Big Eye 31
The Change 49
Outsourced 56
World Peace in Ivas? 82
Rebellion and Fresh Snow 98
Procrastination is the Thief of Time! 116
Aux Champs-Elysees 139
The Lull before the Storm 155
Bomb-happy. . . 171
Red Moon 178
With him 193
Prey World - Citizen 1-564398B-278843
Content
The year 2028. Mankind is in the stranglehold of a
worldwide surveillance state. Frank Kohlhaas, a petty
citizen, lives a cheerless life, working as an agency worker
in a steel plant.
One day, he gets into a conflict with the tyrannical system,
because of an unfortunate accident. An automated trail
convicts him to five years of imprisonment and Frank
disappears in a detention centre, where he suffers under a
cruel system of brainwashing and reeducation.
After eight months of pain, the authorities decide to transfer
him to another prison. On the way there, something
unexpected happens. Suddenly everything changes and the
young man finds himself caught between the fronts. . .
Foreword
This is the English version of the first book of Alexander
Merow's "Prey World" series. The novel was translated by
Thorsten Weber - and the whole procedure entailed a lot of
work. But it was also really funny.
It is not a professional translation and the translator is not a
"native speaker" or English teacher. He is just a guy who
loves science-fiction and dystopias. So try not to laugh at
some of the translated phrases, or the wrath of a real freak
will come over you!
Nevertheless, we thought that would be a good idea to
translate this interesting, courageous and critical novel into
the English language. At the same time it will also enable
English speaking people to join Alexander Merow's growing
audience.
"Prey World" is neither an ordinary book nor light
entertainment. There is already plenty of "light
entertainment" in our times - far too much. On the other
hand, there are not enough books like "Prey World". Books
that make you think about the world we live in. And it is
important that people begin to think.
The author has already found numerous interested readers
all over Germany, and we hope, he will find additional
readers in the English-speaking countries. We would also
be glad, if a "real" mother-tongue speaker were to edit this
English version one day.
Some readers compare "Prey World" with George Orweirs
"1984", the classic among the dystopic novels. Others see
elements of Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" in it.
However, critical thinkers and friends of so called
"conspiracy theories" will have their fun with "Prey World". Is
Alexander Merow' s vision of the future really realistic at all?
A worldwide surveillance state? A World Government under
the control of a ruthless secret society? We will see!
And always remember. . .
"Only a fool would think that "Prey World" is nothing
but fiction! " (Alexander Merow)
Have fun!
Alexander Merow and Thorsten Weber, Berlin 201 1
E-mail: A. Merow@gmx. de
"Maybe it is nothing but madness and suicide. Maybe it will
not change the world, but this is not important for me.
Nevertheless, it will change something for me!
I have suffered too much to humble myself anymore. They
have told us to humble ourselves - since the kindergarten.
Shut up! Consume! Obey! Endure! Believe everything!
Watch shit! Buy shit! Eat shit! Turn the other cheek!
What has become of us? Why have we become sheep?
Why do we endure this all without doing something? Why
has nobody the guts to act?
Thorsten's books were a real eye-opener to me! Now, I
know who they are and what they plan for us all. And I can't
forget what they have done to me. They call us "cattle".
Okay, then I will be the black sheep in the flock. And the
black sheep will fight back now! And it does not fear the
butcher anymore, because even a butcher can be killed.
Franky, the little black sheep, will make them pay now! And
I hope that the flock of white sheep will wake up some day. "
P. S. : If I don't come back, please give this book to Julia. . .
Diary entry of Frank Kohlhaas, 17. 02. 2029
Citizen 1-564398B-278843
Frank Kohlhaas, who was called citizen 1-564398B-278843
in his everyday life, because this was his official
administrative code, was already dreaming of the
unpleasant smell in the hall of his flat, reminding him of
rotten eggs. In his mind, shortly before 5. 00 o'clock in the
morning - soon the dream would be terminated by the
alarm - Frank was on a walk through a sunny valley. But
even at this beautiful place, the moldy smell was still
pervasive, so that Frank wondered, how such a beautiful
valley could smell so repulsive.
When the alarm-clock rang, it quickly became clear that the
sunny valley was just fantasy, although the smell was real.
The noise was shrill and Frank awoke swearing. Now he
had to get up, put on his clothes, have a hasty breakfast
and walk to the production complex 42-B.
„Damn! ", hissed the unshaven man as he moved his not
excessively tall, but amazingly strong body from his cheaply
produced bed.
„Hmmmhaaa! ", yawned Frank, shuffling through his still dark
apartment to the next room, where a dirty kitchen was
waiting for him. The citizen tore open the refrigerator door
and chocked down a cheese sandwich, the meager left-
overs from yesterday's supper.
The water kettle was started with a loud whoosh and, after a
few minustes, supplied hot water for a cup of instant coffee.
„Nnnhhaa! ", uttered the young man, a statement, that could
be interpreted in many ways at this early hour, and could
have referred to his life situation in general. At 5. 27 o'clock,
Frank closed the battered door behind himself and walked
listlessly down the dark corridor on his way to descend the
even darker stairway. The source of that foul stench, that
had been torturing Frank's nose for days, was somewhere
here. Perhaps one of the other tenants, damn idiot, had left
his garbage in the corridor.
made a halfhearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down,
turned, and made off in the opposite direction. When he
had gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not
crowded, but already he could not distinguish her. Any one
of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers. Perhaps
her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable
from behind.
At the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do mean
it. ' He had meant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished
it. He had wished that she and not he should be delivered
over to the
Something changed in the music that trickled from the
telescreen. A cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came
into it. And then — perhaps it was not happening, perhaps
it was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound — a
voice was singing:
'Under the spreading chestnut tree
370 1984
/ sold you and you sold me '
The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed
that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle.
He took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew
not less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank.
But it had become the element he swam in. It was his life,
his death, and his resurrection. It was gin that sank him
into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every
morning. When he woke, seldom before eleven hundred,
with gummed-up eyelids and fiery mouth and a back that
seemed to be broken, it would have been impossible even
to rise from the horizontal if it had not been for the bottle
and teacup placed beside the bed overnight. Through the
midday hours he sat with glazed face, the bottle handy, lis-
tening to the telescreen. From fifteen to closing-time he
was a fixture in the Chestnut Tree. No one cared what he
did any longer, no whistle woke him, no telescreen admon-
ished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week, he went to a
dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of Truth and
did a little work, or what was called work. He had been ap-
pointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had
sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing
with minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the
Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were
engaged in producing something called an Interim Report,
but what it was that they were reporting on he had never
definitely found out. It was something to do with the ques-
tion of whether commas should be placed inside brackets,
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 371
or outside. There were four others on the committee, all of
them persons similar to himself. There were days when they
assembled and then promptly dispersed again, frankly ad-
mitting to one another that there was not really anything to
be done. But there were other days when they settled down
to their work almost eagerly, making a tremendous show
of entering up their minutes and drafting long memoranda
which were never finished — when the argument as to what
they were supposedly arguing about grew extraordinarily
involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling over definitions,
enormous digressions, quarrels — threats, even, to appeal to
higher authority. And then suddenly the life would go out
of them and they would sit round the table looking at one
another with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow.
The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised
his head again. The bulletin! But no, they were merely
changing the music. He had the map of Africa behind his
eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a black
arrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow hori-
zontally eastward, across the tail of the first. As though for
reassurance he looked up at the imperturbable face in the
portrait. Was it conceivable that the second arrow did not
even exist?
His interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of
gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move.
Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because
Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a
candle-lit room with a vast white- counterpaned bed, and
himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking
1984
a dice-box, and laughing excitedly. His mother was sitting
opposite him and also laughing.
It must have been about a month before she disappeared.
It was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hun-
ger in his belly was forgotten and his earlier affection for
her had temporarily revived. He remembered the day well,
a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed down
the window-pane and the light indoors was too dull to read
by. The boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped
bedroom became unbearable. Winston whined and griz-
zled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room
pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscot-
ing until the neighbours banged on the wall, while the
younger child wailed intermittently. In the end his mother
said, 'Now be good, and I'll buy you a toy. A lovely toy —
you'll love it'; and then she had gone out in the rain, to a
little general shop which was still sporadically open nearby,
and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit
of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell
of the damp cardboard. It was a miserable outfit. The board
was cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill- cut that
they would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the
thing sulkily and without interest. But then his mother lit a
piece of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon
he was wildly excited and shouting with laughter as the tid-
dly-winks climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came
slithering down the snakes again, almost to the starting-
point. They played eight games, winning four each. His tiny
sister, too young to understand what the game was about,
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had sat propped up against a bolster, laughing because the
others were laughing. For a whole afternoon they had all
been happy together, as in his earlier childhood.
He pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false
memory. He was troubled by false memories occasionally.
They did not matter so long as one knew them for what they
were. Some things had happened, others had not happened.
He turned back to the chessboard and picked up the white
knight again. Almost in the same instant it dropped on to
the board with a clatter. He had started as though a pin had
run into him.
A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the bul-
letin! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet-call
preceded the news. A sort of electric drill ran through the
cafe. Even the waiters had started and pricked up their
ears.
The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of
noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the tele-
screen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a
roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the
streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was
issuing from the telescreen to realize that it had all hap-
pened, as he had foreseen; a vast seaborne armada had
secretly assembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the
white arrow tearing across the tail of the black. Fragments
of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din:
'Vast strategic manoeuvre — perfect co-ordination — utter
rout — half a million prisoners — complete demoraliza-
tion — control of the whole of Africa — bring the war within
1984
measurable distance of its end — victory — greatest victory
in human history — victory, victory, victory! '
Under the table Winston's feet made convulsive move-
ments. He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind
he was running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds
outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the
portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the
world! The rock against which the hordes of Asia dashed
themselves in vain! He thought how ten minutes ago — yes,
only ten minutes — there had still been equivocation in
his heart as he wondered whether the news from the front
would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was more than a Eur-
asian army that had perished! Much had changed in him
since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the final, in-
dispensable, healing change had never happened, until this
moment.
The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its
tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting
outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning
back to their work. One of them approached with the gin
bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no at-
tention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or
cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love,
with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in
the public dock, confessing everything, implicating every-
body. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with
the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at
his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had tak-
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en him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the
dark moustache. cruel, needless misunderstanding! O
stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-
scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was
all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.
He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
THE END
APPENDIX.
The Principles of Newspeak
Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and
had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc,
or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet
anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of commu-
nication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles
in 'The Times' were written in it, but this was a TOUR DE
FORCE which could only be carried out by a specialist. It
was expected that Newspeak would have finally supersed-
ed Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by
about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadi-
ly, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and
grammatical constructions more and more in their every-
day speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the
Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was
a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words
and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed
later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in
the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are con-
cerned here.
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a
376 1984
medium of expression for the world-view and mental hab-
its proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other
modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when
Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak
forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging
from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthink-
able, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its
vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and of-
ten very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party
member could properly wish to express, while excluding
all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at
them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the
invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating unde-
sirable words and by stripping such words as remained of
unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all second-
ary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word
FREE still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in
such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or "This field
is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of
'politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and in-
tellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and
were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the
suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vo-
cabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that
could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak
was designed not to extend but to DIMINISH the range of
thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting
the choice of words down to a minimum.
Newspeak was founded on the English language as we
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now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when
not containing newly- created words, would be barely intel-
ligible to an English-speaker of our own day Newspeak
words were divided into three distinct classes, known as
the A vocabulary, the B vocabulary (also called compound
words), and the C vocabulary. It will be simpler to discuss
each class separately, but the grammatical peculiarities of
the language can be dealt with in the section devoted to the
A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three
categories.
THE A VOCABULARY. The A vocabulary consisted
of the words needed for the business of everyday life — for
such things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's
clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, garden-
ing, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely
of words that we already possess words like HIT, RUN,
DOG, TREE, SUGAR, HOUSE, FIELD— but in compari-
son with the present-day English vocabulary their number
was extremely small, while their meanings were far more
rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had
been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a
Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound
expressing ONE clearly understood concept. It would have
been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary
purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was
intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usu-
ally involving concrete objects or physical actions.
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding pe-
culiarities. The first of these was an almost complete
378 1984
interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any
word in the language (in principle this applied even to very
abstract words such as IF or WHEN) could be used either
as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and
the noun form, when they were of the same root, there was
never any variation, this rule of itself involving the de-
struction of many archaic forms. The word THOUGHT,
for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was tak-
en by THINK, which did duty for both noun and verb. No
etymological principle was followed here: in some cases it
was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in oth-
er cases the verb. Even where a noun and verb of kindred
meaning were not etymologically connected, one or other
of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example,
no such word as CUT, its meaning being sufficiently cov-
ered by the noun-verb KNIFE. Adjectives were formed by
adding the suffix -FUL to the noun-verb, and adverbs by
adding -WISE. Thus for example, SPEEDFUL meant 'rapid'
and SPEEDWISE meant 'quickly. Certain of our present-
day adjectives, such as GOOD, STRONG, BIG, BLACK,
SOFT, were retained, but their total number was very small.
There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival
meaning could be arrived at by adding -FUL to a noun-verb.
None of the now- existing adverbs was retained, except for a
very few already ending in -WISE: the -WISE termination
was invariable. The word WELL, for example, was replaced
by GOODWISE.
In addition, any word — this again applied in principle
to every word in the language — could be negatived by add-
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ing the affix UN-, or could be strengthened by the affix
PLUS-, or, for still greater emphasis, DOUBLEPLUS-. Thus,
for example, UNCOLD meant 'warm', while PLUSCOLD
and DOUBLEPLUSCOLD meant, respectively, 'very cold'
and 'superlatively cold'. It was also possible, as in present-
day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by
prepositional affixes such as ANTE-, POST-, UP-, DOWN-,
etc. By such methods it was found possible to bring about
an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance,
the word GOOD, there was no need for such a word as BAD,
since the required meaning was equally well — indeed, bet-
ter — expressed by UNGOOD. All that was necessary, in
any case where two words formed a natural pair of oppo-
sites, was to decide which of them to suppress. DARK, for
example, could be replaced by UNLIGHT, or LIGHT by
UNDARK, according to preference.
The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak gram-
mar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which
are mentioned below all inflexions followed the same rules.
Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were
the same and ended in -ED. The preterite of STEAL was
STEALED, the preterite of THINK was THINKED, and
so on throughout the language, all such forms as SWAM,
GAVE, BROUGHT, SPOKE, TAKEN, etc. , being abolished.
All plurals were made by adding -S or -ES as the case might
be. The plurals OF MAN, OX, LIFE, were MANS, OXES,
LIFES. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by
adding -ER, -EST (GOOD, GOODER, GOODEST), ir-
regular forms and the MORE, MOST formation being
380 1984
suppressed.
The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect
irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstra-
tive adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed
their ancient usage, except that WHOM had been scrapped
as unnecessary, and the SHALL, SHOULD tenses had been
dropped, all their uses being covered by WILL and WOULD.
There were also certain irregularities in word-formation
arising out of the need for rapid and easy speech. A word
which was difficult to utter, or was liable to be incorrectly
heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad word; occasionally
therefore, for the sake of euphony, extra letters were insert-
ed into a word or an archaic formation was retained. But
this need made itself felt chiefly in connexion with the B
vocabulary. WHY so great an importance was attached to
ease of pronunciation will be made clear later in this essay.
THE B VOCABULARY. The B vocabulary consisted of
words which had been deliberately constructed for political
purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every
case a political implication, but were intended to impose
a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them.
Without a full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc
it was difficult to use these words correctly. In some cases
they could be translated into Oldspeak, or even into words
taken from the A vocabulary, but this usually demanded
a long paraphrase and always involved the loss of certain
overtones. The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, of-
ten packing whole ranges of ideas into a few syllables, and
at the same time more accurate and forcible than ordinary
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 381
language.
The B words were in all cases compound words. [Com-
pound words such as SPEAKWRITE, were of course to be
found in the A vocabulary, but these were merely convenient
abbreviations and had no special ideologcal colour. ] They
consisted of two or more words, or portions of words, weld-
ed together in an easily pronounceable form. The resulting
amalgam was always a noun-verb, and inflected according
to the ordinary rules. To take a single example: the word
GOODTHINK, meaning, very roughly, 'orthodoxy, or, if
one chose to regard it as a verb, 'to think in an orthodox
manner'. This inflected as follows: noun-verb, GOOD-
THINK; past tense and past participle, GOODTHINKED;
present participle, GOOD-THINKING; adjective, GOOD-
THINKFUL; adverb, GOODTHINKWISE; verbal noun,
GOODTHINKER.
The B words were not constructed on any etymological
plan. The words of which they were made up could be any
parts of speech, and could be placed in any order and muti-
lated in any way which made them easy to pronounce while
indicating their derivation. In the word CRIMETHINK
(thought crime), for instance, the THINK came second,
whereas in THINKPOL (Thought Police) it came first,
and in the latter word POLICE had lost its second syllable.
Because of the great difficulty in securing euphony, irregu-
lar formations were commoner in the B vocabulary than
in the A vocabulary. For example, the adjective forms of
MINITRUE, MINIPAX, and MINILUV were, respectively,
MINITRUTHFUL, MINIPEACEFUL, and MINILOVELY,
382 1984
simply because -TRUEFUL, -PAXFUL, and -LOVEFUL
were slightly awkward to pronounce. In principle, however,
all B words could inflect, and all inflected in exactly the
same way.
Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings,
barely intelligible to anyone who had not mastered the
language as a whole. Consider, for example, such a typical
sentence from a 'Times' leading article as OLDTHINKERS
UNBELLYFEEL INGSOC. The shortest rendering that one
could make of this in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose
ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full
emotional understanding of the principles of English So-
cialism. ' But this is not an adequate translation. To begin
with, in order to grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak
sentence quoted above, one would have to have a clear idea
of what is meant by INGSOC. And in addition, only a per-
son thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the
full force of the word BELLYFEEL, which implied a blind,
enthusiastic acceptance difficult to imagine today; or of the
word OLDTHINK, which was inextricably mixed up with
the idea of wickedness and decadence. But the special func-
tion of certain Newspeak words, of which OLDTHINK
was one, was not so much to express meanings as to de-
stroy them. These words, necessarily few in number, had
had their meanings extended until they contained within
themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were
sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, could
now be scrapped and forgotten. The greatest difficulty fac-
ing the compilers of the Newspeak Dictionary was not to
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 383
invent new words, but, having invented them, to make sure
what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of
words they cancelled by their existence.
As we have already seen in the case of the word FREE,
words which had once borne a heretical meaning were
sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only
with the undesirable meanings purged out of them. Count-
less other words such as HONOUR, JUSTICE, MORALITY,
INTERNATIONALISM, DEMOCRACY, SCIENCE, and
RELIGION had simply ceased to exist.
A few blanket words
covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. All
words grouping themselves round the concepts of liber-
ty and equality, for instance, were contained in the single
word CRIMETHINK, while all words grouping themselves
round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were
contained in the single word OLDTHINK. Greater preci-
sion would have been dangerous. What was required in a
Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient
Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all na-
tions other than his own worshipped 'false gods'. He did
not need to know that these gods were called Baal, Osiris,
Moloch, Ashtaroth, and the like: probably the less he knew
about them the better for his orthodoxy. He knew Jehovah
and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore,
that all gods with other names or other attributes were false
gods. In somewhat the same way, the party member knew
what constituted right conduct, and in exceedingly vague,
generalized terms he knew what kinds of departure from
it were possible. His sexual life, for example, was entirely
384 1984
regulated by the two Newspeak words SEXCRIME (sex-
ual immorality) and GOODSEX (chastity). SEXCRIME
covered all sexual misdeeds whatever. It covered fornica-
tion, adultery, homosexuality, and other perversions, and,
in addition, normal intercourse practised for its own sake.
There was no need to enumerate them separately, since they
were all equally culpable, and, in principle, all punishable
by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of scientific
and technical words, it might be necessary to give special-
ized names to certain sexual aberrations, but the ordinary
citizen had no need of them. He knew what was meant by
GOODSEX — that is to say, normal intercourse between
man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children,
and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman: all
else was SEXCRIME. In Newspeak it was seldom possible to
follow a heretical thought further than the perception that
it WAS heretical: beyond that point the necessary words
were nonexistent.
No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral.
A great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance,
as JOYCAMP (forced-labour camp) or MINIPAX Minis-
try of Peace, i. e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact
opposite of what they appeared to mean. Some words, on
the other hand, displayed a frank and contemptuous un-
derstanding of the real nature of Oceanic society. An
example was PROLEFEED, meaning the rubbishy enter-
tainment and spurious news which the Party handed out
to the masses. Other words, again, were ambivalent, hav-
ing the connotation 'good' when applied to the Party and
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 385
'bad' when applied to its enemies. But in addition there were
great numbers of words which at first sight appeared to be
mere abbreviations and which derived their ideological co-
lour not from their meaning, but from their structure.
So far as it could be contrived, everything that had or
might have political significance of any kind was fitted into
the B vocabulary. The name of every organization, or body
of people, or doctrine, or country, or institution, or public
building, was invariably cut down into the familiar shape;
that is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest
number of syllables that would preserve the original deri-
vation. In the Ministry of Truth, for example, the Records
Department, in which Winston Smith worked, was called
RECDEP, the Fiction Department was called FICDEP, the
Teleprogrammes Department was called TELEDEP, and so
on. This was not done solely with the object of saving time.
Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, tele-
scoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic
features of political language; and it had been noticed that
the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most
marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organi-
zations. Examples were such words as NAZI, GESTAPO,
COMINTERN, INPRECORR, AGITPROP. In the begin-
ning the practice had been adopted as it were instinctively,
but in Newspeak it was used with a conscious purpose. It
was perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one nar-
rowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting out most of
the associations that would otherwise cling to it. The words
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, for instance, call up
386 1984
a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red
flags, barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The
word COMINTERN, on the other hand, suggests merely a
tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doc-
trine. It refers to something almost as easily recognized,
and as limited in purpose, as a chair or a table. COMIN-
TERN is a word that can be uttered almost without taking
thought, whereas COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL is
a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least mo-
mentarily. In the same way, the associations called up by a
word like MINITRUE are fewer and more controllable than
those called up by MINISTRY OF TRUTH. This accounted
not only for the habit of abbreviating whenever possible, but
also for the almost exaggerated care that was taken to make
every word easily pronounceable.
In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration
other than exactitude of meaning. Regularity of grammar
was always sacrificed to it when it seemed necessary. And
rightly so, since what was required, above all for political
purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable mean-
ing which could be uttered rapidly and which roused the
minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind. The words of the
B vocabulary even gained in force from the fact that nearly
all of them were very much alike. Almost invariably these
words— GOODTHINK, MINIPAX, PROLEFEED, SEX-
CRIME, JOYCAMP, INGSOC, BELLYFEEL, THINKPOL,
and countless others — were words of two or three syllables,
with the stress distributed equally between the first syllable
and the last. The use of them encouraged a gabbling style of
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 387
speech, at once staccato and monotonous. And this was ex-
actly what was aimed at. The intention was to make speech,
and especially speech on any subject not ideologically neu-
tral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness. For
the purposes of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or
sometimes necessary, to reflect before speaking, but a Party
member called upon to make a political or ethical judge-
ment should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as
automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets. His
training fitted him to do this, the language gave him an al-
most foolproof instrument, and the texture of the words,
with their harsh sound and a certain wilful ugliness which
was in accord with the spirit of Ingsoc, assisted the process
still further.
So did the fact of having very few words to choose from.
Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny,
and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised.
Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other languages
in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every
year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area
of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought. Ulti-
mately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from
the larynx without involving the higher brain centres at
all. This aim was frankly admitted in the Newspeak word
DUCKSPEAK, meaning 'to quack like a duck'. Like various
other words in the B vocabulary, DUCKSPEAK was ambiv-
alent in meaning. Provided that the opinions which were
quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but
praise, and when 'The Times' referred to one of the orators
1984
of the Party as a DOUBLEPLUSGOOD DUCKSPEAKER it
was paying a warm and valued compliment.
THE C VOCABULARY. The C vocabulary was supple-
mentary to the others and consisted entirely of scientific
and technical terms. These resembled the scientific terms
in use today, and were constructed from the same roots, but
the usual care was taken to define them rigidly and strip
them of undesirable meanings. They followed the same
grammatical rules as the words in the other two vocabu-
laries. Very few of the C words had any currency either in
everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific work-
er or technician could find all the words he needed in the
list devoted to his own speciality, but he seldom had more
than a smattering of the words occurring in the other lists.
Only a very few words were common to all lists, and there
was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a
habit of mind, or a method of thought, irrespective of its
particular branches. There was, indeed, no word for 'Sci-
ence', any meaning that it could possibly bear being already
sufficiently covered by the word INGSOC.
From the foregoing account it will be seen that in New-
speak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very
low level, was well-nigh impossible. It was of course pos-
sible to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a species of
blasphemy. It would have been possible, for example, to say
BIG BROTHER IS UNGOOD. But this statement, which
to an orthodox ear merely conveyed a self-evident absur-
dity, could not have been sustained by reasoned argument,
because the necessary words were not available. Ideas inim-
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 389
ical to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a vague wordless
form, and could only be named in very broad terms which
lumped together and condemned whole groups of heresies
without defining them in doing so. One could, in fact, only
use Newspeak for unorthodox purposes by illegitimately
translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For ex-
ample, ALL MANS ARE EQUAL was a possible Newspeak
sentence, but only in the same sense in which ALL MEN
ARE REDHAIRED is a possible Oldspeak sentence. It did
not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed a palpa-
ble untruth — i. e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or
strength. The concept of political equality no longer existed,
and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged
out of the word EQUAL. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still
the normal means of communication, the danger theo-
retically existed that in using Newspeak words one might
remember their original meanings. In practice it was not
difficult for any person well grounded in DOUBLETHINK
to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even
the possibility of such a lapse would have vaished. A per-
son growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would
no more know that EQUAL had once had the second-
ary meaning of 'politically equal', or that FREE had once
meant 'intellectually free', than for instance, a person who
had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary
meanings attaching to QUEEN and ROOK. There would
be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his
power to commit, simply because they were nameless and
therefore unimaginable. And it was to be foreseen that with
1984
the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics of
Newspeak would become more and more pronounced — its
words growing fewer and fewer, their meanings more and
more rigid, and the chance of putting them to improper
uses always diminishing.
When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded,
the last link with the past would have been severed. History
had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature
of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored,
and so long as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak
it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments,
even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible
and untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any pas-
sage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to
some technical process or some very simple everyday ac-
tion, or was already orthodox (GOODTHINKFUL would
be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this
meant that no book written before approximately 1960
could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature
could only be subjected to ideological translation — that is,
alteration in sense as well as language. Take for example
the well-known passage from the Declaration of Indepen-
dence:
WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT,
THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY
ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN
INALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 391
THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE
INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, DERIVING THEIR POWERS
FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED. THAT
WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES
DESTRUCTIVE OF THOSE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE
PEOPLE WALTER OR ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE
NEW GOVERNMENT. . .
It would have been quite impossible to render this into
Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The
nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the
whole passage up in the single word CRIMETHINK. A full
translation could only be an ideological translation, where-
by Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on
absolute government.
A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, al-
ready being transformed in this way. Considerations of
prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of cer-
tain historical figures, while at the same time bringing
their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc.
Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, By-
ron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of
translation: when the task had been completed, their orig-
inal writings, with all else that survived of the literature
of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were
a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that
they would be finished before the first or second decade of
the twenty-first century. There were also large quantities of
merely utilitarian literature — indispensable technical man-
1984
uals, and the like — that had to be treated in the same way. It
was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work
of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been
fixed for so late a date as 2050.
Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com
Alexander Merow
Prey World
Citizen 1-564398B-278843
Novel
Parti
Prey World
Chapters
Foreword 5
Citizen 1-564398B-278843 7
Automated Trial 23
Big Eye 31
The Change 49
Outsourced 56
World Peace in Ivas? 82
Rebellion and Fresh Snow 98
Procrastination is the Thief of Time! 116
Aux Champs-Elysees 139
The Lull before the Storm 155
Bomb-happy. . . 171
Red Moon 178
With him 193
Prey World - Citizen 1-564398B-278843
Content
The year 2028. Mankind is in the stranglehold of a
worldwide surveillance state. Frank Kohlhaas, a petty
citizen, lives a cheerless life, working as an agency worker
in a steel plant.
One day, he gets into a conflict with the tyrannical system,
because of an unfortunate accident. An automated trail
convicts him to five years of imprisonment and Frank
disappears in a detention centre, where he suffers under a
cruel system of brainwashing and reeducation.
After eight months of pain, the authorities decide to transfer
him to another prison. On the way there, something
unexpected happens. Suddenly everything changes and the
young man finds himself caught between the fronts. . .
Foreword
This is the English version of the first book of Alexander
Merow's "Prey World" series. The novel was translated by
Thorsten Weber - and the whole procedure entailed a lot of
work. But it was also really funny.
It is not a professional translation and the translator is not a
"native speaker" or English teacher. He is just a guy who
loves science-fiction and dystopias. So try not to laugh at
some of the translated phrases, or the wrath of a real freak
will come over you!
Nevertheless, we thought that would be a good idea to
translate this interesting, courageous and critical novel into
the English language. At the same time it will also enable
English speaking people to join Alexander Merow's growing
audience.
"Prey World" is neither an ordinary book nor light
entertainment. There is already plenty of "light
entertainment" in our times - far too much. On the other
hand, there are not enough books like "Prey World". Books
that make you think about the world we live in. And it is
important that people begin to think.
The author has already found numerous interested readers
all over Germany, and we hope, he will find additional
readers in the English-speaking countries. We would also
be glad, if a "real" mother-tongue speaker were to edit this
English version one day.
Some readers compare "Prey World" with George Orweirs
"1984", the classic among the dystopic novels. Others see
elements of Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" in it.
However, critical thinkers and friends of so called
"conspiracy theories" will have their fun with "Prey World". Is
Alexander Merow' s vision of the future really realistic at all?
A worldwide surveillance state? A World Government under
the control of a ruthless secret society? We will see!
And always remember. . .
"Only a fool would think that "Prey World" is nothing
but fiction! " (Alexander Merow)
Have fun!
Alexander Merow and Thorsten Weber, Berlin 201 1
E-mail: A. Merow@gmx. de
"Maybe it is nothing but madness and suicide. Maybe it will
not change the world, but this is not important for me.
Nevertheless, it will change something for me!
I have suffered too much to humble myself anymore. They
have told us to humble ourselves - since the kindergarten.
Shut up! Consume! Obey! Endure! Believe everything!
Watch shit! Buy shit! Eat shit! Turn the other cheek!
What has become of us? Why have we become sheep?
Why do we endure this all without doing something? Why
has nobody the guts to act?
Thorsten's books were a real eye-opener to me! Now, I
know who they are and what they plan for us all. And I can't
forget what they have done to me. They call us "cattle".
Okay, then I will be the black sheep in the flock. And the
black sheep will fight back now! And it does not fear the
butcher anymore, because even a butcher can be killed.
Franky, the little black sheep, will make them pay now! And
I hope that the flock of white sheep will wake up some day. "
P. S. : If I don't come back, please give this book to Julia. . .
Diary entry of Frank Kohlhaas, 17. 02. 2029
Citizen 1-564398B-278843
Frank Kohlhaas, who was called citizen 1-564398B-278843
in his everyday life, because this was his official
administrative code, was already dreaming of the
unpleasant smell in the hall of his flat, reminding him of
rotten eggs. In his mind, shortly before 5. 00 o'clock in the
morning - soon the dream would be terminated by the
alarm - Frank was on a walk through a sunny valley. But
even at this beautiful place, the moldy smell was still
pervasive, so that Frank wondered, how such a beautiful
valley could smell so repulsive.
When the alarm-clock rang, it quickly became clear that the
sunny valley was just fantasy, although the smell was real.
The noise was shrill and Frank awoke swearing. Now he
had to get up, put on his clothes, have a hasty breakfast
and walk to the production complex 42-B.
„Damn! ", hissed the unshaven man as he moved his not
excessively tall, but amazingly strong body from his cheaply
produced bed.
„Hmmmhaaa! ", yawned Frank, shuffling through his still dark
apartment to the next room, where a dirty kitchen was
waiting for him. The citizen tore open the refrigerator door
and chocked down a cheese sandwich, the meager left-
overs from yesterday's supper.
The water kettle was started with a loud whoosh and, after a
few minustes, supplied hot water for a cup of instant coffee.
„Nnnhhaa! ", uttered the young man, a statement, that could
be interpreted in many ways at this early hour, and could
have referred to his life situation in general. At 5. 27 o'clock,
Frank closed the battered door behind himself and walked
listlessly down the dark corridor on his way to descend the
even darker stairway. The source of that foul stench, that
had been torturing Frank's nose for days, was somewhere
here. Perhaps one of the other tenants, damn idiot, had left
his garbage in the corridor.
