Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [226]

What was slightly horrible was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth, it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase — ‘complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism’ — jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid. For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking. And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front — it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 226

Note

The single legible phrase ‘like a line of type cast solid’ gives the man’s speech the physicality of a printed slogan. Orwell then shows that the content doesn’t matter — the only information in the stream is that it is orthodox — collapsing speech into pure orthodoxy signal.