meanings and also the
possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly
by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words
and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far
as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example.
The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such
statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from
weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of 'politically free' or
'intellectually free' since political and intellectual freedom no longer
existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite
apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of
vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be
dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend
but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly
assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
Newspeak was founded on the En