george orwell politics and the english language

Both euphemism and dead metaphors produce irrelevant images that impart ambiguous emotional associations and can deliberately make vague the detailed, brutal reality being distorted by language.Ĭommon Misreadings of the Essay: According to Orwell's argument, we should avoid pretentious diction because it is too often deployed as means to gloss up biased opinions with, 'an air of scientific impartiality' and to convey subjective connotations rather than concrete ideas (Orwell, 5). This is often achieved by adopting the jargon and trappings of the scientific method or journalistic integrity without actually adhering to its rigors or methods. Both bad writers and politicians often use these same techniques to deceive by using 'big words', or misleading oversimplifications, to make their opinions sound more authoritative. Orwell's critique of language is a critique of techniques often used to manipulate, particularly by politicians, advertisers, businesses and authorities.

His critique of meaningless words, again, is not concerned with the vocabulary of a particular audience but the deployment of words that express a vague emotion rather than a concrete idea. He is encouraging a greater economy of words, a resistance to ambiguity, a greater commitment to original phrasing, and a greater sensitivity to euphemism and dead metaphors as potential means of manipulation further, Orwell encourages an adherence to concrete diction and a stye of word choice that enables visualization of writing. Orwell's essay was a critique of vague, cliche, and pretentious diction however, it is often misread as endorsement of colloquialism or a catering to diminished vocabulary this is not his argument he explicitly states his argument is not about making written English more colloquial or restoring English to a long lost more glorious usage. 'Politics and the English Language' Reading Comprehension Questions

George orwell politics and the english language