Newspeak and AstraZeneca

If you would ask me, which book made the deepest impression on me, probably I would say: George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. I read it many years ago, when I was a student, so far before 1984. Since then it’s in my mind. Through the years, I have read many, many books and I have forgotten most of them; maybe not that I had read them, but their contents. However, I have never forgotten the main line of 1984 and what’s important in it. I remember Big Brother, of course, but maybe even more what Orwell called Newspeak.
Oceania, the country Orwell describes in the book, is a dictatorship like North Korea today, although, when writing the book, Orwell had the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in his mind. In order to be more effective in steering and if possible in determining the thoughts of the inhabitants of Oceania, a new language was developed: Newspeak. It should fully function and be effective in 2050. Then everybody should use it and everybody’s thoughts should be determined by it, maybe with the exception of what the proles would think and say.
You find what Newspeak is like everywhere in the book, but Orwell gives a more systematic description in an annex to the novel, which I’ll use for my explanation. I’ll mention mainly what I need for the second part of this blog. Before I begin, first I’ll quote a description of Newspeak from Wiktionary: Newspeak is “use of ambiguous, misleading, or euphemistic words in order to deceive the listener, especially by politicians and officials.” Note that this is not Orwell’s definition but the meaning “Newspeak” developed in later times among the common public, but keep your thoughts on it when reading what follows.
The purpose of Newspeak is, so Orwell, not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the inhabitants of Oceania, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. This is done by limiting the use of existing words, by making new words and by making the grammar as simple as possible. As for the first, take the word “free”. The word is not removed from the vocabulary, but in Newspeak it is used only to communicate the absence of something, for instance “The dog is free from lice” or “This field is free of weeds”. The word could not denote free will or political freedom, which supposedly don’t exist in Oceania. Besides giving words a new meaning also new words are formed. Most striking and very important in Newspeak are words constructed with abbreviations, like it was done in Nazi Germany and in the USSR. Think of words like Nazi (from Nationalsozialist=National Socialist), Komintern (Communist International), Gestapo (=Secret [Geheime] State Police), etc. Such words should be simple, staccato and easy to understand and to pronounce. Third, the grammar should be as simple as possible, which I’ll not discuss here.
As said, the function of the new language was to steer and determine the mind, so that the people would think only what the leaders wanted that they must think. The new words and meanings should not enlarge the brainpower but just make it smaller. People should have positive thoughts, when hearing or saying a word, and all other connotations should have been deleted from consciousness. Or, if people should avoid certain actions, the words referring to it (always having un- as the first syllable) just should not include positive connotations (compare the modern word “indecent”). Especially newly constructed words should be a kind of steno summarizing a complex idea in a few syllables and concentrating on a positive meaning (and only on this positive meaning without negative connotations). Everything else shouldn’t even pop up in your mind. Even expressing something else than this positive meaning should have been made impossible by the new construction.
I had to think of all this when I heard that the recently developed Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca (AstraZeneca vaccine, for short) has got a new name. From now on it will be called Vaxzevria, which should sound better than the original name. Now you can say “What’s in a name?”, but in view of Orwell’s idea of Newspeak, it is likely that there is more behind this name change, than the simple idea that it sounds better, although the vaccine maker denies this: The change of the name had already been planned for some time, they say. But what has happened? Once seen as one of the vaccines that would free us from the dictatorship of the coronavirus, more and more the AstraZeneca vaccine is getting a bad reputation, mainly because it appears to have often life-threatening side-effects. What’s then the best thing you can do, if you can’t improve the image of your product? Change its name! Chose a name with a positive aura, one that makes forget the negative sense that your product has got, by replacing the old brand name that has come to comprise this negativity. But isn’t doing so (and isn’t in fact every change of a brand name) a try to manipulate the minds of the public by a kind of Newspeak? A try to delete all negative connotations that pop up in your mind, when you hear the words AstraZeneca vaccine? Isn’t it a manner to steer and to determine the people’s minds? If you hear “Vaxzevria”, immediately in your mind it should pop up: “Yes! I want to get it!”? For me, it’s simply Newspeak, and then bad Newspeak, for it’s neither simple, nor staccato, nor easy to understand and to pronounce. Vaxzevria, Wakssefria, Vagshefria, Wakse-Fria, what did you say?