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Death Sentence
The Decay of Public Language
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Death Sentence
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Description
Part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, Don Watson's Death Sentence is scathing, funny and brilliant.
'... in public life the language has never been held in less regard. It withers in the dungeons of the technocratic mind. It is butchered by the media. In politics it lacks all qualifications for the main game.'
Almost sixty years ago, George Orwell described the decay of language and why this threatened democratic society. But compared to what we now endure, the public language of Orwell's day brimmed with life and truth. Today's corporations, government departments, news media, and, perhaps most dangerously, politicians - speak to each other and to us in clichΓ©d, impenetrable, lifeless sludge.
Don Watson can bear it no longer. In Death Sentence, part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, he takes a blowtorch to the words - and their users - who kill joy, imagination and clarity. Scathing, funny and brilliant, Death Sentence is a small book of profound weight - and timeliness.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780143790983
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 19 March 2018
Country: Australia
Imprint: Penguin Random House Australia
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 12.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 168g
Pages: 208
About the Author
Don Watson's Recollections of a Bleeding Heart- Paul Keating Prime Minister, won the Age Book of the Year and Non-Fiction Prizes, the Brisbane Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Literary Studies Association's Book of the Year. His Quarterly Essay, Rabbit Syndrome- Australia and America won the Alfred Deakin Essay Prize. Death Sentence, his best-selling book about the decay of public language won the Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year. Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words was also a bestseller. American Journeys won the Age Non-Fiction and Book of the Year Awards. It also won the inaugural Indie Award for Non-Fiction and the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction.
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