Duckspeak

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Speaking in a mindless, automatic way that repeats official slogans without any independent thought behind the words
2. To parrot prescribed political phrases like a machine, uttering approved language without really thinking about it
3. Repeating stock official expressions by rote, as a conditioned person might when voicing orthodox opinions on command

Etymology: George Orwell coined "duckspeak" in his 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where it belongs to Newspeak, the simplified language the Party uses to narrow what people can think. The word is a plain compound of "duck" and "speak," and its sense comes from the novel's idea of speech that quacks out approved slogans without any thought behind it. In the book, duckspeak is the desired result of Newspeak: a person who speaks in this way repeats Party formulas automatically, like a duck quacking. Orwell's choice of the bird is blunt, because a duck's quack is a sound made without meaning, and that is exactly the kind of talk the Party wants its citizens to produce.

Synonyms: parrot