Google Newspeak Glossary: Manual Action in Commercial Relationships
Euphemisms are often made up words that are meant to hide the real (in most cases negative) meaning of existing terms.
Killing in the Name of
For example the thing the US government refers to as “targeted killings” is basically an assassination which in turn is simply murder.
As you’ll see there are often several levels of camouflage to make a horrific thing sound quite nice.
Such terms are often used by governments and corporations. The more obnoxious a government or corporation the worse the linguistic fall out.
The Google Overlords Who Rule the Web
You may have noticed that Google has also become one of the most active creators of euphemisms over the years despite being “just” a corporation.
World renowned author George Orwell called such language as “newspeak”. It is often difficult to notice and ultimately also hard to understand.
Thus I decided to provide an Google newspeak glossary for all those who want to grasp the real meanings behind the cryptic announcements by the Internet giant.
In case you still don’t know what manual action in commercial relationships means read on.
The glossary structure is as follows:
- first the Google euphemism
- what it probably sounds like for most people
- what the more official term was until now
- what it actually means plus an example of actual usage.
| Google Newspeak | What most people think it means | Formerly known as | What it really means | Example |
| manual action | hand job | penalty | ban | we have taken manual action |
| commercial relationships | prostitution | paid inclusion | paid links | commercial relationships ensure quality |
| paid links | prostitution | text link ads | ads from Google competitors | Report paid links to Google |
| privacy | porn | encrypted search | pay for data | enhanced privacy |
| sunsetting | sex on the beach | closing down | failure | Google Wave sunsetting |
| penguin | [too many outrageous sexual meanings] | over optimization | SEO | Penguin update |
| removing | trashing | deleting | censorship | Google removes millions of links |
Are there more Google terms we need to translate to make sure most people do not mistake them for sexual metaphors? Tell me in the comments.
Don’t forget to add the translation too! Btw. Do you also practice manual action in commercial relationships? You dirty rascal!
I enjoyed the “what most people think it means” section. Funny stuff.
Yeah Wyatt, exactly that’s the point, in a world where most people think SEO is a Korean name it’s bizarre how Google invents new terms to hide their agenda.
You forgot the “oral communication” news-peak. I am dying to hear the “example of actual usage”?