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I thought that before re-reading the appendix. But take a look at this line: "It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak...by about th

I thought that before re-reading the appendix. But take a look at this line: "It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak...by about the year 2050." Why not just "It was expected that Newspeak would finally supersede Oldspeak..."? The author seems to go out of his way with the tense he uses to convey the future interpretation. One could argue against the article writer's conclusion, but after re-reading the appendix, I think there's some compelling evidence for it. EDIT: At least for the bit about it being written from an Ingsoc-free future.

acqq 13y ago
Couldn't it just be playing with the fact that text describing Newspeak is written in Oldspeak? Pointing to the paradox that the very book would be impossible in Newspeak? More like "we're lucky we're not them" than "and the wolf was shot and they lived happily ever after"? I posit Orwell wanted to keep the book gloomy enough. It was not to be a fairy tale but the warning. Is there any explicit statement of Oldspeak actually winning in the alternative universe we're reading about? Or the reasons for winning as declared by Ms. Frost ("it's da language")?
- discostrings 13y ago
  Sure--the perspective of the appendix seems open to interpretation, which is great. The very fact he chose such a strange tense, though, leads me to believe he wanted you to at least wonder about such a thing. I only looked to see whether there was a basis for the claim that it was written from a future in which Ingsoc didn't prevail. There's definitely a basis for that claim in the text. Whether there's a basis for her other claims, I'm not sure--I'd have to read again.
baddox 13y ago
It sounds like you're misinterpreting the grammar of that sentence (namely the "would have" verb). It might not be "correct" usage according to prescriptive grammar books, but I immediately interpret as meaning that they are expecting a future event.
- discostrings 13y ago
  Are you basing that on a reading of the appendix, or just on the sentence I excerpted? It's not really clear from the sentence itself, but in the context of the paragraph, it makes a lot of sense. Pay close attention to what's cast in the subjunctive throughout the appendix, and this reading, or at least the ambiguity, seems intended. Another good example is "In 1984 [the year, not the book], when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for any person well grounded in doublethink to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even the possibility of such a lapse would have vanished." The consistency seems more than accidental.
  - baddox 13y ago
    It has been many years since I read 1984 or its appendix, so I was basing what I said mostly on my recollection of it and the sentence you quoted. But having just now rescanned the appendix, I think it is written from the perspective of someone in the real world where George Orwell and the novel exist, not someone from the future in the fictional world of the novel. See for instance the sentence > Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when not containing newly-created words, would be barely intelligible to an English-speaker of our own day. I presume that "our own day" refers to real-world 1948 when the book was written. If my interpretation is correct, it explains the usage of the past tense, which is often how we refer to fictional worlds in books or movies, even if these fictional worlds are set in the future. We would say "Captain Picard lived many years after Captain Kirk," even though both characters are set centuries in the future.
    - discostrings 13y ago
      That's how I originally read it, and I think that's a valid reading. I think Orwell probably wanted readers to get that appearance. But the use of the subjunctive "would have" suggests--though doesn't prove--something more. Your example explains the past tense but not the subjunctive mood. For example, would one say "Captain Picard would have lived many years after Captain Kirk"? To use the construction "would have" in this way casts the event as something that could have happened, but didn't. Similarly, Orwell's constructions paint the events after the publishing of the "perfected" Eleventh Edition, some time after 1984, as events that were planned but that never took place. If it were just anticipation of a future event that wasn't yet in the fictional timeline, I would expect "would" or "may have". It's ambiguous, but it seems to me like he went out of his way to leave both readings open.

acqq 13y ago

Couldn't it just be playing with the fact that text describing Newspeak is written in Oldspeak? Pointing to the paradox that the very book would be impossible in Newspeak? More like "we're lucky we're not them" than "and the wolf was shot and they lived happily ever after"? I posit Orwell wanted to keep the book gloomy enough. It was not to be a fairy tale but the warning. Is there any explicit statement of Oldspeak actually winning in the alternative universe we're reading about? Or the reasons for winning as declared by Ms. Frost ("it's da language")?

discostrings 13y ago
Sure--the perspective of the appendix seems open to interpretation, which is great. The very fact he chose such a strange tense, though, leads me to believe he wanted you to at least wonder about such a thing. I only looked to see whether there was a basis for the claim that it was written from a future in which Ingsoc didn't prevail. There's definitely a basis for that claim in the text. Whether there's a basis for her other claims, I'm not sure--I'd have to read again.

baddox 13y ago

It sounds like you're misinterpreting the grammar of that sentence (namely the "would have" verb). It might not be "correct" usage according to prescriptive grammar books, but I immediately interpret as meaning that they are expecting a future event.

discostrings 13y ago
Are you basing that on a reading of the appendix, or just on the sentence I excerpted? It's not really clear from the sentence itself, but in the context of the paragraph, it makes a lot of sense. Pay close attention to what's cast in the subjunctive throughout the appendix, and this reading, or at least the ambiguity, seems intended. Another good example is "In 1984 [the year, not the book], when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for any person well grounded in doublethink to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even the possibility of such a lapse would have vanished." The consistency seems more than accidental.
- baddox 13y ago
  It has been many years since I read 1984 or its appendix, so I was basing what I said mostly on my recollection of it and the sentence you quoted. But having just now rescanned the appendix, I think it is written from the perspective of someone in the real world where George Orwell and the novel exist, not someone from the future in the fictional world of the novel. See for instance the sentence > Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when not containing newly-created words, would be barely intelligible to an English-speaker of our own day. I presume that "our own day" refers to real-world 1948 when the book was written. If my interpretation is correct, it explains the usage of the past tense, which is often how we refer to fictional worlds in books or movies, even if these fictional worlds are set in the future. We would say "Captain Picard lived many years after Captain Kirk," even though both characters are set centuries in the future.
  - discostrings 13y ago
    That's how I originally read it, and I think that's a valid reading. I think Orwell probably wanted readers to get that appearance. But the use of the subjunctive "would have" suggests--though doesn't prove--something more. Your example explains the past tense but not the subjunctive mood. For example, would one say "Captain Picard would have lived many years after Captain Kirk"? To use the construction "would have" in this way casts the event as something that could have happened, but didn't. Similarly, Orwell's constructions paint the events after the publishing of the "perfected" Eleventh Edition, some time after 1984, as events that were planned but that never took place. If it were just anticipation of a future event that wasn't yet in the fictional timeline, I would expect "would" or "may have". It's ambiguous, but it seems to me like he went out of his way to leave both readings open.