On Retaining Meaning Within Language

How Corrupted Language Moved from Campus to the Real World

I saw the title and never expected the sinister prognosis it delivers.

Basically, the author exposes cases wherein the government has used obtuse language in writing laws, and thus make it nearly impossible for us to know when we are breaking the law? Did I just write that? Orwellian, no? Well, that seems to be his contention.

The respective cultures of the college campus and of the federal government have each thrived on the notion that language is meant not to express one's true thoughts, intentions and expectations, but, instead, to cover them up. As a result, the tyrannies that I began to encounter in the mid-1980s in both academia and the federal criminal courts shared this major characteristic: It was impossible to know when one was transgressing the rules, because the rules were suddenly being expressed in language that no one could understand.