The first of
these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts
of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to
very abstract words such as if or when) could be used either as verb,
noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when
they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of
itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word
thought, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by
think, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle
was followed he in some cases it was the original noun that was
chosen for retention, in other cases the verb. Even where a noun and
verb of kindred meaning were not etymologically connected, one or other
of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example, no such word
as cut, its meaning being sufficiently covered by the noun-verb knife.
Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix -ful to the noun-verb, and
adverbs by adding -wise. Thus for example, speedful meant ?rapid? and
speedwise meant ?quickly?. Certain of our present-day adjectives, such
as good, strong, big, black, soft, were retained, but their total number
was very small. There was little need for them, since almost any
adjectival meaning could be arrived at by adding -ful to a noun-verb.
None of the now-existing adverbs was retained, except for