Author: George Orwell
Title: Politics and the English Language
Genre: Language
Year: 1946
Pages: 30
Origin: read on the Kindle for 99p
Nod Rating: 3 nods out of 5
‘A writer who is still vividly contemporary… Orwell told the truth’
Christopher Hitchens
The Worm cannot add to the vast collection of superlatives attached to George Orwell. The more the Worm reads, the more he subscribes to the view that Orwell is a heavyweight – and perhaps lynchpin – of twentieth century English fiction.
However, this essay – Politics and the English Language – is
not fiction, but rather an analysis of the state of language. Within it he
attacks the seeming debasement of the English language; a vehicle hijacked by
political demagogues and slack thinkers. Orwell believes that writers have lost
their grip on the essentials, and as a result both writer and reader are in a
race for the bottom.
Such ideas would be expanded on greatly in one of his most
popular works, Nineteen Eighty-Four (particular in the restriction placed on
the concept language Newspeak: “doubleplusgood”). And in this essay, Orwell
rallies against complacency, the misuses and abuses of the English language:
‘Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language – so the argument runs – must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influences of this or that individual writer…. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gits rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.’
In order to combat this, Orwell constructs a manifesto of
Six Rules. The first is never to use a metaphor or simile which you are used to
seeing in print and to avoid ‘dying metaphors’ and ‘phrases tacked together
like the sections of a pre-fabricated henhouse’. The second is to always use
short words, rather than long ones in the hope of gaining ‘precision’. The
third recommends always cutting out words if possible. The fourth: use the
active voice, rather than passive. The firth rule asks the writer to avoid
foreign and scientific words, and especially useless jargon and ‘meaningless
words’; hopefully this would remove ‘pretentious diction’. The sixth rule:
break any of the above rules rather than say anything ‘barbarous’.
The Worm has mused over these rules, but admits that he has
often contradicted them (after all, he believes his book reviews are all ‘sound
and fury, signifying nothing’!). And even Orwell breaks the manifesto rules,
admitting as much in this essay. However, if such rules are kept in mind, then
Orwell hopes that ‘staleness of imagery’ and ‘lack of precision’ can be
avoided.
Orwell could be accused of being a pedant. He is scathing of
other writers, but he is both clinical and playful in his condemnation of ‘bad
English’. The writing – as adhered by his own standards – remains fresh and
exciting; just as if it was written in 2013, and not 1946. He remains an honest
voice in a sea of filthy lies.
Apologies, George, but an ending metaphor was the best this
Worm could do.
