alone. It
was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in
such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened. Or
again, the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official
forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the
fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth
Three-Year Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of the actual output,
from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly
wrong. Winston's job was to rectify the original figures by making them
agree with the later ones. As for the third message, it referred to a very
simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a
time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a
'categorical pledge' were the official words) that there would be no
reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was
aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty
at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for
the original promise a warning that