George Orwell understood the power of language. In his novel 1984, the “Big Brother” government enforces a language called “NewSpeak” that eliminates words. They get rid of “bad”. They get rid of “great”. Now there’s just “good”, “ungood”, and “double-plus good”. This brutal collapse of word choice imprisons our ability to express ourselves…our ability to articulate the complex thoughts and emotions we’re having.
Fast forward to the today, and who would have thought we’d choose to imprison ourselves…wearing our reduced vocabularies as some sort of badge of honor, scared that if we start using the big words we will somehow screw with our identity.
But without the big words in your back pocket, it just makes it easier for Big Brother to screw with you!