Doubleplusungood

I get what this guy is saying, right, about phrases like “snowpocalypse” and “Frankenstorm”:

But I haven’t mentioned yet the nails-on-a-blackboard abomination that has permeated popular culture and, I fear, could find its way into permanent usage. Tell, me, honestly, why do we need the word “ginormous”? With “gigantic” we “are exceeding the usual or expected,” and with “enormous” we are “marked by extraordinarily great size, number, or degree.” I have yet to hear anything referred to as “ginormous” that could not have been fully described with one of these two words. This word inflation is a gigantic cultural problem, and its implications are enormous.

But allllll I can hear is Syme:

“After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well — better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good,’ what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning, or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still.”

Which one could really muster in support of either the super-sizing or the arguments against it, yet again suggesting that Orwell has already written all the things we need about language and these articles and this one about it are already redundant IN THIS VERY INSTANT. To coin a new phrase, I have engaged in “Winstoning,” or “Winston’s law,” punishable by a rat-cage to be constructed about one’s head.