George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”

A Revisit of the Classic Essay for 2023

***NOTE 9/27/24): This essay was originally published on 1/19/2023. At the time it went out to 247 subscribers yet received almost 1,000 views and drew a lot of new subscribers, free and paid. I cleaned it up a bit for my current (much bigger) audience. Rereading it now, almost a year and nine months later, I still think the essay is very strong. I do feel like I overused the contentious word “Woke,” and I do sense an underlying feeling of anger which I no longer feel to the same degree. And, to be clear: I see this as a problem very much occurring on both political sides, it just strikes me as culturally more obvious on the far-Left. (And when I say ‘far-Left I don’t mean the greater Democratic Party, though they have adopted some of the new language.) Agree with my views on this or not, I think the bigger point is that language has changed radically over the past decade, and the reasons for that are not necessarily benign.

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George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”

A Revisit of the Classic Essay for 2023

This 15-ish page classic Orwell essay—published in 1946 when Orwell was 43, four years before he died—says everything that needs to be said about Identity Politics (or whatever the hell you prefer to call it, since the new trend seems to be claiming that the word ‘Woke’ itself carries no meaning; whatever you want to call “it” the point is that there is an identifying “it” to be commented on).

It's funny, sad, absurd and terrifying that the progressive left used to absolutely cherish George Orwell, an avowed anti-Totalitarian and Social-Democrat, and yet they have now basically (and quietly) shifted this narrative, attempting of all things to turn Orwell himself—and therefore his ideas—into yet another “Republican talking point.” I won’t go into the specifics of why the contemporary “progressive” left has lost their minds, how they’ve become the very thing they claim to hate, how Animal Farm and 1984 describe not only the far-right wing of America but the far-left. That, in my view, is so patently obvious to anyone still using a functional brain that it need not even be explicated.

In “Politics and the English Language” Orwell discusses many concepts, all of which have to do with what he perceived at the time as the decay of the Anglo-Saxon writing tradition. One thing I love about Orwell is his no-bullshit, direct, straight-from-the-hip, concise and almost punch-you-in-the-face manner of writing. He tells you like it is. As with any writer, I do not agree with every single thing he writes. But I do think, right or wrong as any case may be, he was certainly one of our most honest writers.

In the essay he rants eloquently about the overuse of “fancy” or “pretentious” or “glittery” language (all except “pretentious are my words). He complains about the then-contemporary lack of “precision” and “clarity” (his words). The overuse of Latin and Greek words get a harsh grilling. Nonsensical, trite, overused cliché metaphors and similes get a beating. Worn-out metaphors; mixed metaphors; pre-fabricated words strung together for ready-use; the lack of self-honesty around any writer’s inherent political bias; etc. Vagueness gets a sock to the face; he prefers “concreteness” and “detail” over general, lazy assertions which cannot easily be seen, understood, identified, defended. Bad, useless diction. Changing simple words or concepts into their opposites.

Orwell drums up (brilliantly) Six Writer Questions: “A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”

He complains about “euphemisms” and the overuse of “the not-un formation,” as in “Jimmy was not unable to write well.” Just say:” “Jimmy wrote well.” Why the additional glittery ornament? Why the flashy added words? To try to sound more intelligent? Really writers who do this more often sound pretentious and insecure. Orwell writes about what authors are often trying to say consciously, and how that often contradicts what comes out on the page unconsciously.

He writes about the Six Rules of Writing:

“One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases”:

1.    Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2.    Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3.    If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4.    Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5.    Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6.    Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.