Language and IS killers: Words and crime

It was George Orwell who warned what he believed to be our decaying civilisation about the consequences of debased language, noting that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought”.

Language is routinely and deliberately fouled by politicians, bureaucrats, and corporations to conceal an often unpleasant reality, but, as Orwell also saw, “… bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better”.