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Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: genocide convention, political lying, torture word, Tony Blair, United States, Donald Rumsfeld (more...)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Politicians are held in such low esteem these days that most people assume they are lying or twisting the truth until proven otherwise. Now, as if to confirm that bit of popular wisdom, Guardian contributor Poole (Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution), addresses "unspeak," his term for politically loaded language in which a sound bite implies an entire unspoken political argument. With ample outrage and barbed wit, Poole unpacks some of the most prevalent—and politically charged—expressions animating today's political and media discourse, from "intelligent design" to "global warming," "collateral damage" to the "war on terror." His targets are staples of liberal complaint against current ideology, with much of the book—and his contempt—devoted to disentangling the propaganda that has been marshaled on behalf of the "war on terror" and the war in Iraq. Poole's goal is not only to shed light on how politicians manipulate language to justify their actions but also to shame the media into rejecting the official line rather than parroting government talking points. This book takes no word at face value, which will anger some and enlighten others, just as a book of social and linguistic commentary should. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


From Booklist

Addressing the politics of language in excoriating fashion, journalist and author Poole (Trigger Happy: Video Games and the Entertainment Revolution, 2000) scrolls through ubiquitous terms such as war on terror, pro-life, and Operation Just Cause, labeling these phrases as unspeak for their attempt to silence any possible opposing viewpoint by casting an issue in only one light. Arguing that such phrases are not neutral but "smuggle in political opinion . . . in a remarkably efficient way," he proceeds to analyze the implications of an ongoing effort by politicians and interest groups to manipulate our language, for example, substituting global warming with climate change as a way of recasting the debate about environmental pollution in less-frightening terms. Similarly, what was once referred to as creationismis now called intelligent design by fundamentalists intent on passing off their religious beliefs as scientific theory. Furthermore, Poole maintains that journalists often parrot terms handed to them by corporations and politicians, aiding in passing these phrases into mainstream usage. Thought-provoking analysis of an insidious trend. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Grove Press (May 10, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0802143059
  • ISBN-13: 978-0802143051
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #909,466 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Steven Poole
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
genocide convention, political lying, torture word, violent extremism, terrorist suspects
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Tony Blair, United States, Donald Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, West Bank, Saddam Hussein, Gulf War, Second World War, New York Times, State Department, Condoleezza Rice, Tribunal President, White House, Big Bang, South Africa, Christopher Hitchens, Guantánamo Bay, Michael Behe, Robin Cook, Geneva Convention, Home Office, Prevention of Terrorism, Yasser Arafat, Harold Walker, Convention Against Torture
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality
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Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality 3.9 out of 5 stars (7)
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Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak (Capital Ideas Book) 4.7 out of 5 stars (9)
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Doublespeak Defined: Cut Through the Bull**** and Get the Point!
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Doublespeak Defined: Cut Through the Bull**** and Get the Point! 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
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3.9 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A very important book, May 29, 2006
This review is from: Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality (Hardcover)
This is one of those books I've been waiting for: a calm but clever look at politicians' language. Poole doesn't take what politicians say at face value and then whine about it, and nor does he simply dismiss as lies everything politicians say. Instead, Poole listens carefully to political language to show how meanings are smuggled into certain terms and phrases and, in particular, how these terms or phrases insinuate that people holding an opposing position are wrong (think "Friends of the Earth": you don't support them? Well, then you must be an "Enemy of the Earth"!) The book is full of examples from both sides of the Atlantic, including charged terms like "ethnic cleansing", "terrorist suspect" and "climate change". Even with such important and difficult subject matter, Poole is entertaining as well as convincing. And it doesn't matter what your political bent is because, as Poole shows, no political party has a monopoly on Unspeak. Every journalist and blogger who does not want to be a simple relay between politician and public, or an uncritical purveyor of careful political manipulation, should become familiar with this book. And if you read this book, you will pay attention to news and the blogs in a whole new way.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Ferocious, elegant & riveting, May 20, 2007
I'd recommend Unspeak as: (a) The highest form of escapism - a vital polemic so engagingly and elegantly written that it wipes out everything else you might have been thinking or worrying about when you opened it. Since it has something important to say about most of the most critical wrangles of our time, it is virtuous escapism. (b) A gift to please or flatter any recipient who is or wants to be considered intelligent.

***
This is the rarest kind of book that reflects a monumental concentration of thought and creative energy - a striking contrast to most books today, which are written fighting the distractions of the author's other work, or as a "night job". I don't know how Poole pulled off this feat - or if Unspeak actually had the benefit of his undivided attention - but that's the way his book reads.

Reviewers who have only skimmed the text are making two serious mistakes in their descriptions of Unspeak. Contrary to what Nick Beard (customer review, below) says, the book is not remotely a magazine article on stilts. True, its big idea, though subtle, can be swiftly summarised as "a style of language that attempts to smuggle in an unspoken argument by insinuation." But the Socratic method can also be shrunk to a nugget, yet learning how Socratic dialogue works requires exposition, examples - and practice.

The worse mistake is casting the author as a prisoner of left-wing thinking. In fact, what Poole demonstrates - often with lacerating wit - is that the Left is just as adept at Unspeak's creepy manipulations, as in . . .

** . . . US and UK politicians' use of the word "community" in ways that, on close examination, add up to a "mental anaesthetic, novocaine for the soul." Clinton, says Poole, often "let the word stand alone, using it in a tremblingly phatic way that was emptied of all specific meaning." (Was there ever a better encapsulation of Clintonian rhetoric?)

**. . . or . . .an excoriation of a police report about the accidental murder by men in uniform of the Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes - taken for a terrorist without any evidence at all - on a London Underground train in 2005. The report is crammed chock-full with the mentality of Unspeak. Dissecting it, Poole tells us that "[a]ccording to the first theoretician of tragedy, Aristotle, the tragic hero must be doomed by his own tragic error, or hamartia." He continues: "And they were clearly only spectators, since there was no mention of their having killed Menezes, who instead somehow mislaid his health without outside help. Tony Blair subsequently corrected this unfortunate implication with the most passive, no-blame language possible, referring to `the death that has happened,' as though, perhaps, it had been the result of natural causes."

Along the way, as Poole tackles language used in discussing laws to control social behaviour, debates about immigration and asylum-seekers, environmental battles, military operations in the Middle East and the politics of counter-terrorism, he shows us how much fascinating subtext most of us miss as we race through news reports. For instance: "Contests of Unspeak," like the one in which the barrier Israel began building in 2002 was referred to by Israeli authorities as a "security fence," but as a tool of "apartheid" by the Palestinians shut out by the structure - which included electrified steel-and-barbed-wire and a concrete wall. Agence France Presse, Poole tells us, resolved the giant fuss about whether the thing should be referred to as a wall (the Arabs' choice) or fence by calling it, tongue firmly in cheek, the "concrete fence." Poole concludes: "The designation's eventual evolution into `'separation barrier' was something of an improvement, even if the phrase was a crude tautology." Indeed.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Angry words spoken and explained, December 4, 2007
By Wyvernfriend (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
Mr Poole is an angry man, he has serious issues with a lot of the abuse of language that is being perpetuated by politicians at the moment. You can almost feel the anger oozing from the edges of this book (I'd recommend something light and fluffy to read after this!). He looks at the propaganda wars being waged at the moment and asks why we aren't asking more questions about it. And he's right. We should be asking more questions, demaning straight answers and not voting the idiots back in when those answers aren't forthcoming.

The problem is that people in general are just too lazy, once it doesn't affect them they don't bother to ask the questions, force the issue, demand the answers. That's part of Mr Poole's anger, his inability to change people in general.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Do I have to give it a star?
This book is everything that is wrong with political nonfiction. It COULD have been a good book had it stood up without bias and examined the way bureaucrats and politicians of... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Brian Lee Mulholland

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant account of our rulers' lies
In this insightful book, journalist Steven Poole shows how our rulers abuse language to promote and disguise war, torture and corporate interests. Read more
Published on June 19, 2007 by William Podmore

2.0 out of 5 stars Study of journalistic fantasy
"Unspeak" might have made an interesting article for a magazine, but the material the author has gathered here doesn't warrant a book. Read more
Published on March 10, 2007 by Nick Beard

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read!
Do you notice that our evil wars and battles always seem to have noble sounding titles? It's not by accident. And author Steven Poole shows us how it's done. Read more
Published on July 1, 2006 by Kirk Muse

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