I googled this, and I got this:

A false Etemology? The word "doublespeak" wasn't "coined in the early 1950's" (I'm on shaky ground here but I doubt if anyone can show me a cite much before 1990)

I guess this could be checked in LexusNexus or similar. Mememe 14:28, 26 Sep 2005 (EDT) Interestingly, this apparently goes back to 1974:

I also looked in the dictionary, but it gave the date of:

Origin: 1950–55; double + speak, by analogy with doublethink

I looked further and came up with this:

Because of my erroneous memory, I thought that 'doublespeak' actually appeared and hence was defined in 1984. But from the Wikipedia entry, I learn that it "was coined in the early 1950s", and is "often incorrectly attributed to George Orwell" (as was done by me).

Which stated that George Orwell did not come up with this phrase. But then the following really confused me:

•"Doublespeak is not a term invented by George Orwell, but we surely nod to him for its origin, since he did invent 'doublethink' and 'newspeak' for his political novel 1984" (Paul Wasserman and Don Hausrath, Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak. Capital Books, 2006)

So what exactly is the origin of the term "doublespeak"?

I googled "doublespeak", and I got this:

A false Etemology? The word "doublespeak" wasn't "coined in the early 1950's" (I'm on shaky ground here but I doubt if anyone can show me a cite much before 1990)

I guess this could be checked in LexusNexus or similar. Mememe 14:28, 26 Sep 2005 (EDT) Interestingly, this apparently goes back to 1974:

I also looked in the dictionary, but it gave the date of:

Origin: 1950–55; double + speak, by analogy with doublethink

I looked further and came up with this:

Because of my erroneous memory, I thought that 'doublespeak' actually appeared and hence was defined in 1984. But from the Wikipedia entry, I learn that it "was coined in the early 1950s", and is "often incorrectly attributed to George Orwell" (as was done by me).

Which stated that George Orwell did not come up with this phrase. But then the following really confused me:

•"Doublespeak is not a term invented by George Orwell, but we surely nod to him for its origin, since he did invent 'doublethink' and 'newspeak' for his political novel 1984" (Paul Wasserman and Don Hausrath, Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak. Capital Books, 2006)

So what exactly is the origin of the term "doublespeak"?