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George Orwell: Politics and the
English Language: Page Two
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Each of these passages has faults of its own,
but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common
to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other
is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot
express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is
almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.
This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most
marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially
of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are
raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems
able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose
consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of
their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together
like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. I list below,
with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which
the work of prose construction is habitually dodged:
Dying metaphors.
A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual
image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically
"dead" (e.g. iron resolution ) has in effect
reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used
without loss of vividness.
Metaphor. Likens one thing to another.
All the world's a stage. West Sacramento is a hive of industry.
The investigation caused a fire storm of activity.
But in between these two classes there is
a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative
power and are merely used because they save people the trouble
of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the
changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod
over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of,
no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters,
on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed
. Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what
is a "rift," for instance?), and incompatible metaphors
are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested
in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted
out of their original meaning without those who use them even
being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is
sometimes written as tow the line . Another example is
the hammer and the anvil , now always used with the implication
that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always
the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about:
a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid
perverting the original phrase.
Ring the changes on: From bell ringing,
which you'll sometimes see done by small groups at church. Striking
the bells in a different pattern is called a change.
Take up the cudgel for: A cudgel is
a short, thick stick used as a weapon. Taking up the cudgel means
maintaining an argument or position. To fight, as with a cudgel,
for one's own way.
Toe the line: When runners line up to
race. They literally toe the starting line before taking off.
Hammer and anvil. Phrase is quite British.
Don't dwell, note and move on.
Operators or
verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking
out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each
sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of
symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate
against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give
grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in,
make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the
purpose of, etc.,etc . The keynote is the elimination of
simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break,
stop, spoil, mend, kill , a verb becomes a phrase
, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose
verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition,
the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to
the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds
(by examination of instead of by examining ). The
range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize
and de- formations, and the banal statements are given
an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation.
Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases
as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint
of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that ;
and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding
commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out
of account, a development to be expected in the near future,
deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory
conclusion, and so on and so forth.
Replace this with that:
in order to: to
having regard to: regarding
with respect to: respecting
the fact that: that
Thanks to Philip Lees for his many insightful comments.
Pretentious diction.
Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun),
objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary,
promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate
, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of
scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like
epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old,
inevitable, inexorable, veritable , are used to dignify the
sordid process of international politics, while writing that
aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its
characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed
fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion.
. . .
General Jaruzelski puts the
jackboot on the Solidarity movement.
Foreign words and expressions such as cul
de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status
quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung , are used to give an
air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations
i.e., e.g. , and etc. , there is no real need for
any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English
language. . . . .
cul de sac: A court.
ancien regime: political and social
system that no longer governs (especially the system that existed
in France before the French Revolution)
deus ex machina: God from the machine.
A person, thing, or force, that abruptly arrives on the scene
to solve a difficulty.
mutatis mutandis: things being changed
which have to be changed. Shorthand for make the necessary changes.
gleichschaltung: Coordination or control
of political, economic, and cultural activity in totalitarian
regimes. Used in Orwell's time to describe how the Nazis controlled
every part of their society.
weltanschauung: Philosophy of life.
Bad writers, and especially scientific, political,
and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion
that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary
words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated,
clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly
gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers. . . .(Footnote number
1)
Can you tell the difference between
Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Saxon words? I can't. At least not quickly.
Orwell and his British writer contemporaries started learning
Greek and Latin in grade school; for them discussing word origins
was an easy, oft-discussed subject.
(Footnote 1) An interesting illustration of this is the way
in which the English flower names which were in use till very
recently are being ousted by Greek ones, snapdragon becoming
antirhinum, forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc.
It is hard to see any practical reason for this change of fashion:
it is probably due to an instinctive turning-away from the more
homely word and a vague feeling that the Greek word is scientific.
Orwell wrote on how the public used common plant names. The plant community, though, uses a scientific or botanical name which is unique and universal for each species. A forget-me-not in England may have a different common name in Japan. The Japanese might call Edelweiss
a forget me not. How could two distant people be sure they
were talking about the same plant? But to the botanist a Myosotis
sylvatica, no matter where it grows, is always a Myosotis
sylvatica.
The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena,
hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey,
mad dog, White Guard , etc.) consists largely of words translated
from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining
a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate
affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier
to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible,
extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think
up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result,
in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.
Meaningless words.
In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and
literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages
which are almost completely lacking in meaning. (Footnote Number
2) Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental,
natural, vitality , as used in art criticism, are strictly
meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to
any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so
by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding
feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality," while another
writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work
is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts this as a
simple difference opinion. If words like black and white
were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living,
he would see at once that language was being used in an improper
way. Many political words are similarly abused.
Modern art example. A non-representational
work. Lovely.
(Footnote 2) Example: "Comfort's catholicity of perception
and image, strangely Whitmanesque in range, almost the exact
opposite in aesthetic compulsion, continues to evoke that trembling
atmospheric accumulative hinting at a cruel, an inexorably serene
timelessness . . . . Wrey Gardiner scores by aiming at simple
bull's-eye's with precision. Only they are not so simple, and
through this contented sadness runs more than the surface bitter-sweet
of resignation." (Poetry Quarterly.)
The word Fascism has now no meaning
except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable."
The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic,
justice have each of them several different meanings which
cannot be reconciled with one another. 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 Petain 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.
The French general Marshal Petain
led the Vichy government in World War II. It cooperated with
the Nazis to run France while Germany occupied it. He was sentenced
to death in 1945 but the punishment was later reduced to life
in prison. He died in 1951.
George Orwell: Politics
and the English Language: Page Two
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