Can we start to speak plainly? Try practicing right now.

Professional language, and even some casual language, frequently obscures meaning rather than illuminates. Is this a reflection of our society, in which truth is very hard to come by?

An unattributed article in the journal of the American Association of Phyicians and Surgeons grabbed so many wonderful turns of phrase from George Orwell that I had to reproduce them. I am going to savor these phrases, roll them around in my mouth, and remind my friends of them. Let’s stop being “polite.” Can we simply say what we mean? Can the beating around the bush end? It will be very hard to convince people of the wonders of the Great Reset if you have to actually tell them what you mean.

https://aapsonline.org/aaps-news-july-2025-words-can-kill/

Your mother might have encouraged you when other kids said mean things: “words will never hurt you.” But words are more powerful than sticks and stones. False accusations can ruin your career, as in sham peer review, unwarranted reports to medical boards, or sexual harassment allegations.

Saying the wrong words today can also ruin you, if you are accused of microaggression, misgendering, or misinformation.

Changing the meaning of words can also make evil seem good, or good evil—and even destroy a civilization.

As George Orwell wrote in his essay “Politics and the English Language”: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible…. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness…. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, ‘I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so’” (https://tinyurl.com/mw8ey68e).

Political language, including that in medical journals, is generally complex and elaborate. Orwell writes: “The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism…. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out [black] ink…. Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” …