circumlocution office

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Introduced in Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit.

Noun

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circumlocution office (plural circumlocution offices)

  1. Any organization that wastes time on bureaucracy to the detriment of its actual business.
    • c. 1857, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, published 1884, page 110:
      The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without having to be told) the most important Department under government. [] It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office.
    • 1869, George William Curtis, “Civil-Service Reform”, in Addresses and reports on the reform of the civil service of the United States, published 1894, page 22:
      Then it is said that the reform would establish a circumlocution office and restore the great official practice of how not to do it. Now, I think it would be an extremely clever circumlocution office that would practise that principle more zealously than the present system does.
    • 1988 September 28, Nat Hentoff, “The circumlocution office”, in Washington Post:
      In Westchester County, N.Y., a foster parent pleaded with the Circumlocution Office not to return a 10-month old child to her natural mother, who kept missing visits, was being beaten by her husband and had a record of mental illness. The infant, however, was returned, and was beaten to death.
    • 1997 January 22, Deaglán de Bréadún, “Plenty of double-speak when it comes to bilingualism”, in Irish Times, Dublin, page 1:
      A survey of the implementation of State policy for the promotion of bilingualism shows the spirit of the Circumlocution Office is alive and well in the Irish public sector.