Steven Poole coined the phrase ‘Unspeak’ as a fitting title for his book describing the process by which certain key words can lay claim to the high moral ground in a contentious matter without having to justify the argument.

‘Unspeak’ should not be confused with George Orwell’s ‘newspeak’ or ‘doublespeak’ which effectively reversed the meaning of words, ‘unspeak’ is a deliberate attempt to to make the message ‘reality’.

Poole compares and contrasts ‘tax relief’ and ‘tax burden’, which covertly argue that lowered taxes automatically relieve and unburden everybody. Pro-choice distances its speakers from actually advocating abortion, while casting “adversaries as ‘anti-choice’; as interfering, patriarchal dictators.”

When governments speak of a surgical strike they convey the benevolent practice of medicine, ridding a target of its disease.Collateral damage redefines the death of innocents as injury. Smart weapons posit the opposite of dumb weapons that kill indiscriminately. Daisy cutter sanitizes the killing power of the daisy-cutter bomb. Weapons of mass destruction, which earlier referred to the horrific mechanized tools of warfare being stockpiled in the 1930s, now applies to biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons when possessed by ‘other’ regimes.

Poole writes, “But Unspeak does not say one thing while meaning another. It says one thing while really meaning that one thing,” and the confusion unspeak generates is almost always calculated and deliberate.

As the channel through which politicians, activists, and corporations market their words, reporters are usually the first recipients of new examples of unspeak. Monitoring how they say what they say is as important as reporting precisely what they say. As Poole notes, resisting unspeak isn’t quibbling about semantics. It’s attacking the “chain of reasoning at its base.”

In May 2007. the word ‘abduction’ was on everybody’s lips, in every newspaper headline, on every news bulletin.  What sea change has occurred, that now when discussing the McCann case, that emotive word ‘abduction’, with its implication that unspeakable acts which could not have been foreseen are  responsible, have gradually and insidiously been replaced by the media with the words ‘disappeared’ or  ’vanished”?

The recently published accounts for ‘The Madeleine Fund’, as it is colloquially known, contain these words from the Chairman, John McCann.

‘On 3rd May 2007, Madeleine McCann was abducted in Praia da Luz, Portugal’.

That word ‘abducted’ jumped out at me, and I realised what a very long time it had been since I saw that word used by the mainstream media in connection with this case.

Coco
January 31, 2009 at 18:01

I think the Press should stick with ……….. Disappearance …………. It’s not as
sinister!

Makes me wonder in awe and amazement just how much power the likes of
Murdoch et al will be having in The New World Order!

In fact ………. I am becoming pissed off at the way Google and their ilk are
allowing us to retrieve information on the internet!

Were it not for people on the boards of 3As having the temerity and insight
to copy stuff as it came onto the net ………… Where would we get information
……………… Coz almost every news-site has ‘removed’ everything!

I still thank the person who copied GM’s tout on Friends Reunited! I cannot
remember the exact words anymore – but it was something like ……….. ‘Anybody
for baby-sitting?’

Of course this was removed swiftly from the FR web-site …………. Why? It was
obviously said in jest.

Much more sinister to have removed it – in my judgement – than to have left
it on there. This puzzled me endlessly …………. It was as if anything that could
be jibed at or used in a Court of law could be used against them was
whoosh-clunked! ……………….. Being the paranoid cynic that I am …………. I can see
where the PR people were coming from.

It wouldn’t be good right now if millions and millions of people could read
that quip …………. and make something of it!

God forbid!

Anyway ……… I am off to rediscover Catholicism again now ………. because I have
been a naughty girl today ……….. And I want to feel blessed and nurtured! In
fact I am just about to ask the local Priest how he feels about Catholics and
contraceptives – and Catholics and IVF treatment.

I don’t know how Popey felt about the Clan having IVF ……….. I just know
that he hasn’t got anything on his web-site ………… So something is up! Summat’s
not right!

Poor Popey! He was put in a reeeeeeally bad position over this …………

We can’t have the leader of one of the World’s biggest religions getting
involved in the skullduggery of IVF!

I have to hand it to the Clan’s PR machine …………… They have involved people
at the highest level.

I bet Popey is as pissed off as Pope could get …………. And I believe that
some Popes have been pissed off for a lot less in the past ……….. but heads
have rolled!

Squeak! Squeak!

It looks like a couple of people will not be going to Heaven!!!!!!!

Coco January 31, 2009 at 16:48

‘Abducted’! To carry off by force or kidnap.

To carry off by force …………

Even from the beginning …………….. I do not recall anybody anybody begging to
hear from ‘kidnappers’ or awaiting a kidnap ransom note.

I am with Amaral on this one …………….. The person or persons who had
something to do with the carrying of MM was known to her and known amonst the
Tapastwats.

Now – who was it?

GM himself has stated that looking back ………. MM could have been drugged
……………..

Drugged and carried off by a stranger or strangers without knocking
anything over or disturbing the bedding? And the child not screaming the place
down?

Mmmmm! Absolutely impossible. And to have not only removed all traces of
themselves …………. but to have cleaned the whole place up ……….. properly ………….
Scarcely leaving a trace of even the family that lived there??????

In such a small window of opportunity? Five minutes wouldn’t give anybody
time to do that.

I think that the super-duper detectives need to try going back a couple of
days …………. to all the phone calls that were made first thing in the morning on
KM’s phone. I am suspicious about why certain people were called so early in
the morning …………… ie. Other doctors – and so early!

It sounds as if those phone calls were very very early for social calls. In
fact ………… my first thought is that the calls must have been extremely urgent!
After all ………….. this was a holiday ……… Why be ringing other doctors in the UK
so early on in the day?

Ay up!

But the biggest mistake? ………………….. The biggest mistake was not getting the
Hell out of the restaurant and checking their own kids were OK.

It’s the tiny things, you see. It’s the tiny things that trip you up …………..
and make the Police and the Public very suspicious – Even though I am sure
that they have done nothing wrong at all. I must stress that they are perfect
parents in every way ………………

And as for the crying that the neighbour heard much much earlier in the
holiday …………….. Well! I think that the crying heard by the neighbour ………. and
the phone calls to the UK – may just be a piece of the jig-saw that needs
filling in …………. I think we need to look into this very seriously. No wonder
KM was advised not to answer all those tricky questions. Legal minefield! A
complete legal minefield.

Sheep for a lamb keep popping into my head. Sheep for a lamb! I bet the
lawyers are glad that their firms have fabulous reputations ………….. and big
burly meaty people in the Government and Grey Departments!

Such a lot of sickness on that holiday ………… according to Fiona Payne ……….
Exactly how many people were ill?

Gloria Smudd
January 31, 2009 at 01:10

‘That’ word. I got so sick of gritting my teeth when I heard or read it, I
got myself straight down to Mr Pliers and asked for a ‘gummy’; these days I
keep my teeth either in my knicker leg or overnight in a glass and, to my
relief, I find I can now hear or read ‘that’ word without my enamel shattering
or my jaw-muscles locking into rictus. Aren’t dentists wonderful?