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of accuracy.
But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's
figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one
piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing
with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of
connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a
fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great
deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For
example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of
boots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as
sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the
figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim
that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was
no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very
likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how
many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every
quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps