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Honesty, Truth, and Concision
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Politics and the English Language Quotes
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language.
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In this passage from the essay's introduction, Orwell uses an analogy about drinking to explain the logic underlying his argument about how lazy writing leads to lazy reading/thinking. Orwell is saying that drinking and shame have a circular relationship: drinking leads to shame, which then leads to more drinking. Orwell’s rationale is that bad writing is similar, and does more than reflect stupidity; bad writing actually makes people stupid, which leads to more bad writing. Thus, like drinking, bad writing is both a cause and an effect. Analogical reasoning thus helps Orwell clarify and explain the rationale for his argument. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dol
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 hen-house.
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After the introduction, Orwell turns to explain specific stylistic features of bad writing—in other words, what bad writing actually looks like. Orwell starts with a discussion of “dead metaphors,” or overused metaphors and idioms. As he describes it, dying metaphors are the result of lazy writers settling for whatever’s laying on the surface of their minds to explain a point. Orwell would prefer writers spend more time and effort, digging deeper for fresher phrases to better illustrate their ideas. What's more, because writers tend to repeat whatever they see in print, overuse builds on itself: dead phrases rot as they Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaq
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.
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This passage serves to connect Orwell’s discussion of bad writing to his discussion of bad political communication. Orwell does not divide his essay into sections, but readers can easily break down the body of the essay into three conceptual segments: 1) analysis of the stylistic features of bad prose, 2) description of how bad prose allows for bad politics, and 3) explanation of techniques to improve writing. Here, in a passage connecting the first and second of these sections, Orwell describes “meaningless words”—a stylistic feature of bad prose—as especially toxic within political communication. Specifically, Orwell’s concerned with how bad political Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut.
In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions, and not a ‘party line.’ Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White Papers and the speeches of Under-Secretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech.
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After detailing the stylistic features of bad writing, Orwell adjusts his focus to talk about political communication. This passage, taken from the first paragraph in which Orwell focuses specifically on political writing, details the pervasiveness of bad writing within political communication. To recap: Orwell’s main point is that the normalization of bad writing allows for dictatorial governments. To get from bad writing to dictatorial governments, Orwell describes how bad writing is the principal style within political communication. In this sense, his argument hinges on the normalization of bad writing. In this passage, Orwell directly speaks to the concept of normalization, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus
A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself […] And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.
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Throughout the essay, Orwell assigns a kind of contaminating power to readymade phrases, granting such stale, overused language the power to infiltrate the mind via laziness—and, once inside, to deteriorate thought. In this passage, part of an explanation of how bad writing shapes political communication, Orwell elaborates on how the normalization of bad writing erases the ability to generate original thought. That is, lazy writing discourages people from making the effort to think for themselves. In particular, he describes how readymade phrases turns people into puppets. In doing so, he returns to a central claim in his argument about how Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta.
Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless 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.
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Orwell argues that, by normalizing bad writing, lazy writers make it easier for power-hungry politicians to engage in the kind of linguistic trickery necessary for establishing a dictatorship. Or, as Orwell describes in this passage, how governments repackage abuses using vague language and empty buzzwords. The mention of “pacification” likely refers to the murder of approximately 20,000 Polish villagers by Nazi Germany in what Nazis referred to as “pacification operations.” Thus, in calling upon “pacification” as a charged word, Orwell points to an example of a government engaging in deceptive communication strategies to avoid facing the reality of their actions. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident e
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
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After connecting vague prose to the concealment of political violence, Orwell elaborates on how readers should interpret that vague prose. In contrast to succinct phrasing, Orwell argues that wordiness gives lies more to hide behind. Think about it like this: providing a straightforward answer (e.g., "yes or "no") opens a speaker up for exposure. That is, it’s easier to separate lies from the truth when there’s less to sift through. A flurry of words thus makes it difficult for an audience to parse out a speaker’s claim—to figure out what they’re actually saying. As Orwell describes here, readers can thus Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi ne
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better […] Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against.
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Towards the conclusion, Orwell opens himself up for examination by the reader. This is key to his argument that bad writing is the norm. If bad writing, as Orwell claims throughout this essay, is genuinely the norm, then bad writing is everywhere—even within Orwell’s work. Again, as Orwell describes it, bad writing isn’t just the style of choice for evil dictators. As Orwell asserts throughout the essay, an evil dictator only takes advantage of what lazy and unwitting writers normalize through their work. That means that not even Orwell is free from the squirrelly seduction of bad writing. After all, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui a
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 till 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.
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As Orwell nears towards a conclusion, he outlines an approach to writing that he believes would generate more concise and honest content. In this particular passage, he describes a specific writing process in which a writer sits with his thoughts before turning the pen to paper. That is, Orwell wants writers to gather their ideas before writing. In doing so, Orwell assumes that writing—especially in abstract terms—can infect one’s reality. Note that, from numerous studies on the best practices for generating concise prose, this is an approach most contemporary writing instructors would not recommend. Even writing instructing professionals who would Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiore
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.
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In the conclusion, Orwell makes a caveat regarding the limits of his argument. Precisely, he notes a specific limit on the genres to which his argument should apply. In doing so, Orwell provides a rebuttal or response to an anticipated counterargument or objection from the audience. A rebuttal recognizes limitations or situations in which an argument would not hold. In this passage, Orwell acknowledges the limits of his argument regarding fiction writing. As he describes it, his argument only applies to that writing which attempts to represent the truth. Presumably, because fiction is inherently not a reflection of reality—by definition Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati.
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