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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

duckspeak en · NOUN

Etymology

From duck + speak, coined by George Orwell in 1949 as part of the Newspeak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) Thoughtless or formulaic speech.
    • They have developed a particularly obnoxious form of ungood duckspeak. 'Friendly fire' and 'collateral damage' are only the most obvious examples... 2006, Stephen Ingle, The social and political thought of George Orwell:
    • To be sure, he provides very many juicy examples of such duckspeak or bullshit... 2008, Richard J Alexander, Framing Discourse on the Environment: A Critical Discourse Approach:
    • Because his utterances detour through his brain - rather than, as in duckspeak, coming straight from the well-programmed larynx - he has Socratic doubts... 1989, Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity:
    • I think you might just have had the courage to realize things I didn't know were there. That's really duckspeak, isn't it. I only thought I was happy. 2004, Joan Elizabeth Lloyd, Club Fantasy:

Translations (6)

it ocoparlare (thoughtless speech) · sh паткоговор (thoughtless speech) · ru речекряк (thoughtless speech) · fi ankkapuhe (thoughtless speech) · de Quaksprech (thoughtless speech) · hu kacsabeszél (thoughtless speech)

wikipedia: Nineteen Eighty-Four