The decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes. The English language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
The decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes. The English language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
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 towards political regeneration
Two qualities are common in today’s writings. These are staleness of imagery and lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or 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. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness
In writing, use words of everyday life. Also use vivid images. Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer.
Modern writing consist in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that its easy.
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes will ask himself at least six questions:
o What am I trying to say?
o What words will express it?
o What image or idiom - the language peculiar to a people or to a district, community, or class – will make it clearer?
o Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
o Could I put it more shortly?
o Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
Political language consists largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer political vagueness. Phrases are used to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. The objective is to stop people from thinking and taking action.
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s desired aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms.
In our age there is no such thing as keeping out of politics. All issues are political issues, and politics is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. The invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases can only be prevented if one is on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.
Make your meaning clear. Use the fewest and shortest words that will cover one’s meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the words, and not the other way about.
In prose, the worst thing you can do to words is to surrender to them.
When you 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. After words one can choose – not simply accept – the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impression one’s words are likely to make on another person
This last effort of the mind cuts out all the stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally.
Rules that cover most cases
o Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you
are used to seeing in print
o Never use a long word when a short word will do
o If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out
o Never use the passive when you can use the active
o Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or jargon word if you
can think of everyday English equivalent
o Break any of the rules sooner than say anything barbarous
Language should be an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. These rules sound elementary, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable.
The present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy.
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a movement, but one can change one’s habits, and from time to time one can even send worn-out and useless phrases
into the dust bin where it belongs.
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