Death Sentences: How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak are Strangling Our Public Language

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A brilliant and scathing polemic about the sorry state of the English Language andwhat we can�and must�do about it.

When was the last time you heard a politician use words that rang with truth and meaning? Do your eyes glaze over when you read a letter from your bank or insurance company addressing you as a valued customer? Does your mind shut down when your employer starts talking about making a commitment going forward or enhancing your key competencies? Are you enervated by in terms of, irritated by impactful, infuriated by downsizing, rightsizing, decruiting, and dejobbing? Does business process re-engineering and attriting fail to give you ramp-up�in terms of your personal lifestyle?

Today�s corporations, news media, education departments�and, perhaps most troubling, politicians�speak to us and to each other in clich�d, impenetrable, lifeless babble. Toni Morrison has called it the �disabled and disabling� language of the powerful, �evacuated language,� and �dead language.� Orwell called it �anesthetic� language. In Death Sentences, Don Watson takes up the fight against it: the pestilence of bullet points, the dearth of verbs, the buzzwords, the weasel words and cant, the Newspeak of a kind Orwell could not have imagined.

Published in Australia in November 2003, Death Sentences gained a massive following among the legions of bright, sensitive people who Could Not Take It Anymore. More than a year later, it remains a national bestseller. Praise: �An important read for anyone who holds language dear.� �Lucy Clark, Daily Telegraph �The Book of the Year� witty, erudite, and funny. Awfully funny.� �The Australian Financial Review �Nobody writes more lyrically or cares more about words and those who murder them.� �Sydney Morning Herald �Witty, excoriating, and horrifying, [DEATH SENTENCE] should be every politician�s, academic�s, businessman�s, journalist�s, and bureaucrat�s choice for book of the year� and, alas, the era.� �Robert Drewe, �Books of the Year,� The Age ��should leave us afraid, very afraid� Anyone involved in writing for public consumption should read it�and sooner rather than later.� �Frances Wilkins, Lawyers Weekly ��obliterates the vernacular vandals among journalists, academics, politicians, and business people with deadly aim.� �Murray Waldren, Australian �Brilliant� tempered by sorrow.� �Peter Price, Bulletin ��an amusing and stimulating book. Watson�s writing is the antithesis of all he deplores: it is humane and welcoming.� �James Ley, Age �Watson writes well�passionately, fiercely, with generous sprinkles of wit and vitriol� Expect an entertaining ride.� �Ruth Wajnryb, Sydney Morning Herald ��scathingly funny and deadly serious.� �Jose Borghino, Marie Claire �A book of unusual significance, a meditation on our times as much as a work on language� [it] will still be read�and enjoyed�in 50 years� time.� �Jim Davidson, Eureka Street �Always lucid and witty� a resource of painful delight.� �John McLaren, Overla