Death Sentence: The Decay of Public LanguagePart diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, Don Watson's Death Sentence is scathing, funny and brilliant. ' ... in public life the language has never been held in less regard. It withers in the dungeons of the technocratic mind. It is butchered by the media. In politics it lacks all qualifications for the main game.' Almost sixty years ago, George Orwell described the decay of language and why this threatened democratic society. But compared to what we now endure, the public language of Orwell's day brimmed with life and truth. Today's corporations, government departments, news media, and, perhaps most dangerously, politicians u speak to each other and to us in cliched, impenetrable, lifeless sludge. Don Watson can bear it no longer. In Death Sentence, part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, he takes a blowtorch to the words u and their users u who kill joy, imagination and clarity. Scathing, funny and brilliant, Death Sentence is a small book of profound weight u and timeliness. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 91
Page 1
... PUBLIC LANGUAGE CONFRONTS MOST of us every day of our lives , but rarely when we are with friends or family . Not yet , at least . It is not the language in which we address lovers , postmen , children or pets . So far . True , in the ...
... PUBLIC LANGUAGE CONFRONTS MOST of us every day of our lives , but rarely when we are with friends or family . Not yet , at least . It is not the language in which we address lovers , postmen , children or pets . So far . True , in the ...
Page 3
The Decay of Public Language Don Watson. and possibility . This alone makes marketing and managerial language less than ideal for a democracy or a college . In addition their language lacks almost every- thing needed to put in words an ...
The Decay of Public Language Don Watson. and possibility . This alone makes marketing and managerial language less than ideal for a democracy or a college . In addition their language lacks almost every- thing needed to put in words an ...
Page 135
... . There is an argument that goes , as the public realm declines so must the public language . An empty public realm means an empty public language in proportion . Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our 135 The Decay of Public ...
... . There is an argument that goes , as the public realm declines so must the public language . An empty public realm means an empty public language in proportion . Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our 135 The Decay of Public ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Advance Australia Fair American argument Australian better Burke Bush buzz word clichés commitment communications context continuous improvement core corporate culture customers Czeslaw Milosz dead democracy economic Elements of Style Elmore Leonard empowered English language enhanced evil Exercise feel Flaubert flexible following sentence football George Orwell George W grammar guage hear henhouse hope Hopefully human ideas imagination imitate implement inspiration issue John Howard journalists kind Knowledge Management leaders least less Lincoln live managerial marketing mateship means ment mind mission statements modern moral clarity never Norman Mailer numbers organisational outcome parrot Philip Roth phrases politicians President Primo Levi prioritised prose public language reason Rewrite the following rhetoric Shakespeare social someone sound speak speech strategy talk television tell thing thought Tim Fischer tion truth universities verbs W.H. Auden wonder write