“Irony is a great help in helping to penetrate fraudulent language.”

— Paul Fussell

Humanities interview (1996)
Context: Irony is a great help in helping to penetrate fraudulent language. In the Second War especially, the language became virtually identical with the language of advertising. It was seen through by the troops, who knew what the truth was. It helped to sustain civilian support for the war, which was its purpose, after all. … And euphemism has remained, of course. It's a large part of the tone of public discourse. … It's now practiced on so wide and so official a scale that it's grown out of all proportion to what it was in the war.

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Paul Fussell 15

Recipient of the Purple Heart medal 1924–2012

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