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Politics and the English Language

by George Orwell

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From Orwell's essay, choose one point you agree with and one you disagree with.

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One point I agree with in Orwell's essay is his argument about the manipulation of language by politics, emphasizing how strategic word choice can shape public perception. However, I disagree with his stance on the deterioration of the English language, as it seems rooted in an idealized view of the past and fails to account for the natural evolution and selective memory in literature.

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George Orwell makes several points in his essay “Politics and the English Language” to further his argument that words are often intentionally used to obscure the underlying meaning of a statement, particularly when it comes to politics. He notes that writers can fight the temptation to be slovenly when writing and specifically points to what he calls "dying metaphors."

He says that a new metaphor can evoke a visual image. In addition, there are metaphors that he calls "dead" because they have been in use for a long time and have therefore "in effect reverted to being" ordinary words. However, Orwell says these dead metaphors "can still evoke an image," but "worn-out metaphors" that are also old "have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.”

It seems that here Orwell is taking too many liberties to make his...

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point. He looks at newly-coined metaphors and says that they evoke an image. So far, his thinking makes sense. He then looks at the other end of the spectrum with metaphors that have been in use for as long as a writer can remember. He calls these “dead” metaphors. However, he then says that the dead metaphor can still “generally be used without loss of vividness,” but the “worn-out metaphors” that are neither new nor dead have “lost all evocative power.” People use them because they are too lazy to invent new phrases and metaphors for themselves.

Orwell is stretching a point here because there is little distinction, it seems, between what he calls dead and worn-out metaphors. Who is going to decide which metaphors are dead and which merely worn out? Is it Orwell? It is true that people often forget the origin of a metaphor that has been in use for a long time. However, the meaning of the metaphor is still recognizable, and although it might save the writer the trouble of evoking a new image, the worn-out metaphor still conjures up certain ideas for the reader that can help the writer advance an argument.

For instance, he gives “stand shoulder to shoulder with” as an example. The expression originated in the late 1500s and referred to military troops marching in close formation. While the reader and the writer equally might not know its derivation, both likely understand that it means to remain united or provide complete support to another person during a difficult time.

Orwell also points to meaningless words and notes that “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.” This argument makes sense, as it seems that writers are often using unnecessarily long words and phrases to describe things and actually end up obscuring the underlying meaning of their message. Perhaps the writer is being pretentious.

Unfortunately, Orwell goes too far with this argument. He specifically cites “Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism,” and says they “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.”

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The central point of Orwell's essay with which I agree is that political language is often designed to make lies sound truthful. Though "Politics and the English Language" was written three quarters of a century ago, much of what has been happening in our own time illustrates that Orwell's point is still valid. It relates to the intention of many in government to erode the concept of objective reality and to make the population believe that truth is not what is objectively observed and remembered, but rather, whatever the "leader" says is true. In just the past few months, we have heard terms such as "alternative facts" and statements such as "Truth is not truth." These are a simplified form of the confusing and elaborately misleading examples of the political writings of his time that Orwell cited.

On the other hand, I disagree with his assertion that the tendency of modern English is towards "Latinization." Even in Orwell's time, though political writing was becoming increasingly deceptive and even overtly nonsensical, English in general was simpler in wording and style than it had been in the nineteenth-century. If we compare any sample of Victorian prose with that of the post-1920 world, it's obvious that the older style used more words with Latin (and Greek) roots and thus had a loftier, more formal sound than more recent writing. The issue of "Latinization" has little to do with political deceptiveness in writing, in my view.

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