Post by t-bob on Jul 12, 2019 10:07:05 GMT -5
noun
1. awkward, evasive, or pretentious prose said to characterize the publications and correspondence of U.S. federal bureaus.
Quotes
The C.D. program echoes the 1950s mania for bomb shelters, but the 1982 version incorporates a new idea. In federalese, it's called "crisis relocation," and, like bomb shelters, a lot of it is laughable. -- Michael Kramer, "The Fate of the Freeze," New York, June 14, 1982 The language used is bureaucratic gobbledygook, jargon, double talk, a form of officialese, federalese and insurancese, and doublespeak. -- Jack Weinstein, as quoted in "Gobbledygook," ABA Journal, November 1984
Origin
Federalese is the youngest of an unlovely trio, dates to 1944, and has the narrowest reference, being restricted to the federal government. The equally ugly bureaucratese also dates to World War II (1942) and is broader in scope, including state and municipal government. The oldest and most comprehensive term, officialese, dates to 1884. In English the suffix -ese forms derivative adjectives and nouns from names of countries, their inhabitants, and their languages (such as Chinese, Faroese, Portuguese, Japanese, and Brooklynese, too). By analogy with this usage, -ese is used jocularly or disparagingly to form words designating the diction of people or institutions accused of writing in a dialect of their own invention (such as journalese, officialese, bureaucratese, and federalese).
1. awkward, evasive, or pretentious prose said to characterize the publications and correspondence of U.S. federal bureaus.
Quotes
The C.D. program echoes the 1950s mania for bomb shelters, but the 1982 version incorporates a new idea. In federalese, it's called "crisis relocation," and, like bomb shelters, a lot of it is laughable. -- Michael Kramer, "The Fate of the Freeze," New York, June 14, 1982 The language used is bureaucratic gobbledygook, jargon, double talk, a form of officialese, federalese and insurancese, and doublespeak. -- Jack Weinstein, as quoted in "Gobbledygook," ABA Journal, November 1984
Origin
Federalese is the youngest of an unlovely trio, dates to 1944, and has the narrowest reference, being restricted to the federal government. The equally ugly bureaucratese also dates to World War II (1942) and is broader in scope, including state and municipal government. The oldest and most comprehensive term, officialese, dates to 1884. In English the suffix -ese forms derivative adjectives and nouns from names of countries, their inhabitants, and their languages (such as Chinese, Faroese, Portuguese, Japanese, and Brooklynese, too). By analogy with this usage, -ese is used jocularly or disparagingly to form words designating the diction of people or institutions accused of writing in a dialect of their own invention (such as journalese, officialese, bureaucratese, and federalese).
