Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant & Management Jargon, Random House Australia, 2004

An invaluable handbook and guide to modern managerial language, newspeak, and linguistic political chicanery; WATSON’S WEASEL WORDS is also an essential reference for victims and saboteurs; like DEATH SENTENCE, it is both serious and amusing - deadly serious and soberingly amusing.

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Introduction

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Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language, Random House Australia, 2003 (in UK Gobbledygook, Atlantic 2004)

Almost sixty years ago, George Orwell described the decay of language and why this threatened democratic society. But compared to what we now endure, the public language of Orwell’s day brimmed with life and truth.

Today’s corporations, government departments, news media, and, perhaps most dangerously, politicians – speak to each other and to us in clichéd, impenetrable, lifeless sludge. Don Watson can bear it no longer. In DEATH SENTENCE, part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia’s public language, he takes a blowtorch to the words – and their users – who kill joy, imagination and clarity. Scathing, funny and brilliant, DEATH SENTENCE is a small book of profound weight – and timeliness.

Review
‘All Australians should read this book. All Australians should be grateful that it has been written.' Julian Burnside, Australian Book Review

Suggestion from Marianne Holmes
The Oxford Guide to Plain English by Martin Cutts (Oxford University Press, September 2004) — provides 21 guidelines on how to write in a clear and well-structured way.
‘A provocative tome...anathema to a generation of pedants.' Daily Telegraph.

Suggestion from Anna Read
Rene Cappon's The Word ( An Associated Press Guide To Good News Writing) 'If this book is not still in print, it should be. A few  actual examples of what happens when cliches are not only used, but used wrongly... Don't throw out the baby with the dishwater...we're all working like banshees...when the wolf's away, the mice will play.'

Suggestion from Michael Gordon-Smith

Clear and Simple as the Truth; Writing Classic Prose by Mark Turner and Francis-Noel Thomas

'This marvellous little book avoids the inevitable arguments that arise from even the best How To and How Not To books. It does this by describing some fundamental questions that they identify as the elements of style and by illustrating the way that classic style can be defined by a particular set of answers to those questions. Stimulating, fresh, invigorating. I recommend it highly.'

Suggestion from Wendy Allen

Allan, Keith & Kate Burridge, 1991 Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language used as shield and weapon, New York: Oxford University Press

'Detailed, entertaining and scholarly account of the use of euphemisms, and their opposites, dysphemisms. Looks at linguistic, social and psychological motivations for these universal pratices.
(Out of print, but available through Amazon).'

Suggestion from Stefan Carey

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots : A Bullfighter's Guide
by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, Jon Warshawsky. Stefan says: 'From the moment I read the books first line I was hooked: "If you think you smell something at work, there's probably good reason -- Bullshit has become the official language of business."'

Suggestion from David Murchland

The Meaning of Tingo by Adam Jacot de Boinod, published by Penguin Press. 'I've not read it as yet, but saw a review by The Independent Online . More for the collector of the weird and wonderful than anything else perhaps, but it sounds interesting nonetheless.'

Suggestion from Joe Podosky:

Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff
'It's all about the way the American right have gone about reframing issues for their benefit. A typical example is the way they have reframed the term to describe global warming. ... It doesn't sound so sinister, so negative anymore ... Here in Australia we can see framing in action (or weasel words to use your terminology) with the name of the new industrial relations body that will take over from the old Industrial Relations Commission. It's name, the Fair Pay Commission. Very Orwellian.' [thanks Joe]

Word Watching, field notes from an amateur philologist, Julian Burnside, Scribe Publications, 2004

In this witty and erudite collection, Julian Burnside reveals curious usages, inexplicable idioms and strange connections in the rich smorgasbord of the English language. You will never use bumf, berk and poppycock in polite society again.