Stop? I'm just getting started!

The purpose of Newspeak was to limit the language so that only IngSoc principles could be expressed. This meant the elimination of words, even grammar, that made ungood concepts possible. The whole idea was to develop a vocabulary and a syntax that could only communicate the dictatorship's ideas, and any objection or criticism of them became ungrammatical, or even unintelligible.

Thanks for providing the link, but I prefer not to use it. I'm using Orwell as an inspiration, not a Bible. Looking up exactly waht he said will not help me make my point. I'm trying to communicate what I think and how Orwell influenced me, not what Orwell thought and said. I would like to think I read a book like 1984 and got something out of it, learned something from it. It changed me. I haven't read it in years but I feel comfortable discussing it because I believe I "got it". If I look something up in it now and find it not as I remember it, I will not necessarily change my mind about what I feel the book was about. I may change my mind because I am older and wiser now, and I no longer believe in what I believed back then, but not because I misremembered a string of words or a scene or an idea.

It's the same with a dictionary, if I look up a word like "universal joint", or "monocotyledon", I expect an immediate and precise definition, maybe even one of those neat little line drawings that always distract you when you're looking for something else.

If I look up words like "love", "work", "freedom", or "democracy", I cannot demand that kind of precision, although the verbiage in a typical dictionary deludes you into thinking you are getting the same kind of concise accuracy. Frank is right, words like "conservative" and "liberal" are not mechanical parts or biological structures capable of exact definition. They are complex, fluid, changing concepts which depend on a variety of factors. A dictionary definition is a useful start, but not much better. It is not understanding. You simply can't put two dictionary definitions side-by-side and then make a pure value judgment based on the comparison.

That is what you are trying to do, TB, make any interpretation of what you say or think is bad English, so your definition, your framing, is the genuine one. And of course, you get to decide just what the dictionary says. How convenient.

I once had a very similar discussion with a co-worker who finally ended the argument, "Well, I believe in freedom, and you obviously don't." How can you reason with someone who thinks that way?