5/30/2023 0 Comments Orwell english language![]() ![]() ![]() Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Never use the passive where you can use the active. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use a long word where a short one will do. ![]() Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. He’d have a few harsh words to say about the woke!įirst, though, let’s look at the five principles of good writing Orwell lists at the end of his essay: Reviving Orwell’s thoughts in light of modern politics was a great idea. But he gives it a modern twist, showing how the kind of obscurantist writing decried by Orwell is still with us-pervasive in the works of the Woke. There’s a reason why Christopher Hitchens wrote a book called Why Orwell Matters in 2003.Īndrew Sullivan is also a fan of that essay, as all writers should be, and highlights it in one section of his weekly column (click on screenshot below). You can read it here, and should, like me, do so at least once a year. ![]() It not only teaches one how to write clearly, but shows how political writers deliberately use obfuscation and euphemism to blur language for ideological ends, hiding political brutality and base motives. George Orwell’s 1946 essay “ Politics and the English Language” is one of my favorite essays of all time (you could do worse, though, than read all his collected essays, many of them masterpieces). ![]()
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