's clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in
vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely
of words that we already possess words like hit, run, dog, tree, sugar,
house, field -- but in comparison with the present-day English vocabulary
their number was extremely small, while their meanings were far more
rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out
of them. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was
simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly understood concept. It would
have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary purposes or
for political or philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express
simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical
actions.
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first
of these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts
of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very
abstrac