From today’s NYTimes:
This century? Please. Orwell is so 1984.
Bah dum bump. 
To be honest, that’s almost the very epitome of Orwellian language. It’s precisely what Orwell was warning against.
Exactly.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Trial Lawyers dispense Justice.
lissener, this is such a dark and pessimistic view of where we are and where we are going. I truly wish I could disagree with you, but I think this might well be the Orwell Century. More often then not, I feel we will continue to surrender freedoms for safety. We will meekly make ourselves part of a massive sales and government database.
On Saturday, we were at a Dollar store and the very polite and Peppy sales clerk ask every customer for their Phone Number to enter into the register. Most people were paying by cash. I was flabbergasted that everyone just agreed without thinking about. I told the clerk “Do not bother to not ask me for my number”. Why was everyone giving a dollar store their phone number? Why did a Dollar store need peoples Phone number? What are they doing with those phone numbers?
Jim
Plus, my local dollar store just raised all their prices to $1.25
Fuckin’ Orwell.
Woah, woah. We’re not even 10 years into the century and already you want to label it? I’m all for the Orwellian Decade, though. Here’s hoping we grow out of it by 2010.
Well, true, but the paranoia has ratcheted up as well, to some degree. I worked this summer at the admissions gate of a zoo. We ask everyone for their zip code. Now, this is very useful information. If we can see, at the end of the year, where people visited the zoo from–local as well as tourists–we can determine the following things: how “regional” are we? are we meeting the expectations of local people? Where should we advertise discount coupons? Where should we place directions signs off the highways? what other zoos should we reciprocate memberships with? how many Canadian visitors do we get: should we accept Canadian money? etc. etc. etc. It also determines how much tax money we get, and from what sources.
But every once in a while you get someone who will refuse to give their zip code. Now I ask you: what can I possibly find out about you, personally, by knowing your zip code? How many people share that zip code with you? What, if you thought about it, could you possibly object to about giving us your zip code? The funniest thing is when someone refuses to give me their zip code . . . and then pays by credit card. Yeah, dude, you are *so * off the grid.
But this is just a hijack; a peeve I’ve seethed over all summer.
Mine, too, but with my phone number, I get discounted down to $1.10!! What a deal!
We’ve always been at war with the American Association for Justice.
In all seriousness, though, I haven’t read any Orwell in a few years, so what is so troubling about this announcement?
Meh. Not any different from the National Council to Control Handguns changing their name first to Handgun Control Inc., and then, when they realized that “control” didn’t market well, changing names again to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Handy, isn’t it? I mean, it’s possible to be a reasonable person and still oppose “handgun control”, but surely everyone will want to “prevent gun violence”, right? Similarly, “trial lawyers” are rich jerks in suits, but if they’re “for justice” then by Gadfrey they’re heroes!
“Trial lawyers” seems to me nice and specific, indicating a class of lawyers who might want to join together as a professional body. “Justice” is an abstract ideal: will they accept any person (lawyer or not) who believes in advocating justice in some way? Or will they still limit membership to trial lawyers?
[And I don’t understand why trial lawyers get such bad press. If you have a court system, you need lawyers who can represent the parties to cases. If trial lawyers are so nasty, why aren’t judges and jurors (who actually make the decisions in the courts, be they good or bad) at least as nasty too?]
Well yes, it’s a bad, cheesy and less-descriptive name than previously, but Orwellian? Not seeing it, myself.
Well, I think it’s a refeence to Orwell’s passionate efense of good language, not just in 1984, but also in Animal Farm (“four legs good, two legs bad”), and in his essays
You appear to be missing an “r” and a “d”, good sir.