“Unspeak” is Poole’s alternate word for euphemisms, which are, as we know, alternate words for other words. Pledging to unravel today’s cleverest and most devious semantic knots while exposing lying liars, the edgy Brit lashes out at those who say, for instance, “tragedy” and “terrorist,” arguing that these are political expediencies rather than true descriptions. But as a contributor to the staunchly liberal Guardian, Poole apparently can’t help but bring a certain bias to the table. The book would have been bolder — and more honestly illustrative of our times, since he says it’s honesty he craves — had he savaged unspeakers on both left and right more evenly. But he doesn’t.
Grade: C+
aperson Says:
May 11th, 2006 at 5:08 pmVisit aperson
What really bothered me about this book was the way he completely ignored some of the most egregious euphemisms — such as “affirmative action” as a code phrase for “racial discrimination,” and “critical theory” which really means “Marxism.” Perhaps this is because the author is British and those terms are not common there, but I think the real reason is that he was just trying to push one political viewpoint by analyzing some deceptive phrases, yet not mentioning others. So, in the end, Unspeak is itself a form of unspeak, since he hides his true intentions with deceptive use of language.