UNCW presents expert on doublespeak
9/30/2004 10:20:13 AM
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Sept. 30, 2004
Wilmington, N.C. - William D. Lutz, lawyer and English professor at Rutgers University, will speak at the University of North Carolina Wilmington at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 19 on “Doublespeak, Public Discourse and the Condition of the Body Politic.” The talk will take place in UNCW’s King Hall Auditorium and is free and open to the public. This event is sponsored by the Buckner Lecture Series and the UNCW Graduate English Association. A book signing and reception will follow.
Lutz served as head of the Committee on Public Doublespeak for 15 years and as the editor of the National Council of Teachers of English Quarterly Review of Doublespeak for 14 years. His books include Doublespeak: From Revenue Enhancement to Terminal Living (1989), The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone’s Saying Anymore (1997), Doublespeak Defined: Cut Through the Bull**** and Get the Point (1999), as well as The Cambridge Thesaurus of American English (1994) and Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People and the Deadliest Fire in American History, with Denise Gess (2003).
For years, Lutz has waged a battle against “doublespeak,” the use of convoluted, evasive, deceptive, misleading and deliberately ambiguous language. Larry King calls him “the 1990s George Orwell” for good reason. Lutz raises real concerns about the potential dangers of irresponsible and misleading language in an increasingly Orwellian world and slyly and subversively unravels the slippery locutions of spinmeisters from all walks of public life.
The Buckner Lecture Series was established by Charles F. Green, III, in honor of his friend Katherine K. Buckner to provide funding to bring distinguished guest presenters to UNCW.
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