Ministries of Nineteen Eighty-Four when production has actually gone down (see ). The Ministry hands out statistics which are "nonsense". When Winston is adjusting some Ministry of Plenty's figures, he explains this: Like the other ministries, the Ministry of Plenty seems to be entirely misnamed, since it is, in fact, responsible for maintaining a state of perpetual poverty, scarcity and financial shortages. However, the name is also apt, because, along with the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Plenty's other purpose is to convince the populace that they are living in a state of perpetual prosperity. Orwell made a similar reference to the Ministry
Economical with the truth Economical with the truth To be economical with the truth literally means to avoid revealing too much of the truth. While the idea may have an approbatory sense of prudence or diplomacy, the phrase is often either used euphemistically to denote dissimulation (misleading by withholding pertinent information) or else used ironically to mean outright lying. The "Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations" and Kenneth Rose trace the idea to Edmund Burke, the first of whose "Letters on a Regicide Peace", written in 1795 and published in 1796, included: The religious sense of "economy" was applied to religious truth by John Henry