The Butchering of the English Language

George Orwell was a great writer. I recently came across a cool paper he wrote in 1946 titled Politics and the English Language. In it he stated that most bad writing typically has the following two signatures:

1. staleness of imagery


2. lack of precision

He believed that it is the job of every writer to try to maintain (and improve upon) the clarity of language

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 gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

He believed that politics is directly responsible for the demise of language

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Which is only made worse by the all encompasing nature of politics

In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.

The core issue is the lack of clarity necessary to make political statements sound reasonable

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.

And the creation and usage of loose words and phrases that are allowed multiple meanings

In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made
with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

How do you correct the problem of writing watered down language like politicians?

Think visually

When yo think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations.

While thinking visually ask yourself these questions:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

He also came up with these 6 rules:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.


2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.


3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.


4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.


5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.


6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

If you ever look at some of the Delicious Popular or Dugg stories and think they are basic, that is probably part of the reason they are popular, because they are easy to understand.

One of the things that makes Jon Stewart so enjoyable is his clarity. Check out Jon 2 minutes in where he quotes Bush saying “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lY4aUhSqNs

Update: As mentioned in the comments, here is a bit more clarity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcwknDWfkYg

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