Doublespeak consists of using intentionally vague or complex language to distract the audience from any possible negative interpretation of information. It presumes that, if the audience were directly exposed to the truth of a matter, the results would be negative. In public relations, on the other hand, the objective is usually to elicit a positive response, not to avoid a negative one.

Among the most well-known (infamous?) examples of this practice are

• "pre-owned" instead of "used"
• "collateral damage" instead of "civilian casualties"
• "downsizing," "rightsizing," or "non-duty, non-pay status" instead of "layoff"

When Ron Khol wrote "Functionality-Enhanced Provider" for Machine Design Magazine, he felt that doublespeak showed that Americans (at least) were becoming satisfied with intentionally vague language, if we weren't simply becoming stupider. He puts it this way:

We are seeing a dumbing down of the American vocabulary, partly because people try to elevate their ideas and activities, but mostly because baby boomers never gravitated beyond the limited vocabulary they had in playschool. So they make up babytalk words to use where the language already has perfectly good and descriptive terms. As an aside, our newspaper recently published a picture of a customer ordering a meal in a restaurant. The customer was identified as a "meal-seeker." Interestingly, one of the places where crippled vocabularies are most evident is in newspaper and magazine writing.

References

Lutz, W. The New Doublespeak. Harper-Collins, 1997.