I have read
George Orwell’s Animal Farm and have
heard nothing but praise for his popular dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Because of this, I was intrigued to see a
non-fiction essay written by Orwell and read it in one sitting on the bus home
from school. What I read, I realize, is not only important for emerging
students to consider but something vital to speakers and readers of any
language, and a chance for them to (I’m going to use something Orwell would
disapprove of here for the desirable effect) look in the mirror and reflect (I
wonder what Orwell thought of puns?).
Orwell makes his
stance on the state of the English well known from the opening sentence of the
essay. He deliberates reasons for why it has ended up this way, ranging from
political entropy to paradoxical notions of bad writing supporting bad thoughts
creating more bad writing. George argues that the English prose is riddled with
vagueness and meaninglessness, and that its most harmful place is in politics. Orwell
is particularly loathsome when it comes to politics, it is possible that he was
deeply influenced by the various wars he experienced, sometimes first-hand. He
suggests that the use of ready-made phrasing, lousy words, pretentious diction
and other fillers are merely replacements for the author, allowing them to
avoid having to come up with his or her own means of expressing thoughts/ideas.
Orwell goes on to actually suggest their might be a cure for all that was gone
wrong with the English Language, stating six rules such as “Never use a long
word when a short one will do”. To me, that particular rule is the most
important one, necessary in the delivery of efficiently and effectively writing.
Reader comprehension and precision in writing is key to Orwell, something he
believes has been lost in the mess of dressed-up sentences and even scholarly
work, as pointed out in his examples of ugly, unclear writing.
I recognize that
in this blog entry, I will have committed some of the “mental vices” George
brought forward in his critique of those examples. I can’t help but wonder how
much more time-consuming writing would become if we made an effort to make
every aspect of writing our own. Humans are creatures of habit and copy each
other; that is part of how we learn. Though Orwell stresses the simplification
of language, he advises the complete avoidance of ready-made phrases, the
elimination of various literary techniques (who is the judge of what ones are
acceptable) and to completely change the attitude towards writing. There is much
more, and that alone makes writing sound like an immensely complicated craft
that everyone has to learn all over again, because according to Orwell, we’re
doing it wrong. That’s intimidating, to say the least; I also cannot help to
think that if we all were to write in this ideal fashion, some wise and
critical thinker, not unlike Orwell, would rise to find gaps and major flaws
within its logic, deeming it detrimental to society, prove it is used corruptly
for political gain and harmful to the way we think. It seems impossible and too
grand a task to change the way humans write, and consequently think. The
variety of conflicting opinions that could rise would constrain progress (for
example, some people would not call it progress at all) to a slow crawl. Who,
then, decides what is best for the English language? The government? If that’s
the case, I’d rather see a horde of academics fight it out, actually.
I am skeptical
only because I feel a strange sensation of intrigue and distrust in anyone’s
claim to absolute truth; I intend to use doubt not to feed my cynicism but as a
healthy measure for balancing the information entering my head day to day. The
more evidence George provided, the more convinced I usually found myself of his
arguments. I recognize Orwell is far more learned and clever than I should ever
hope to be on this subject. If I were to completely replace meaning with
metaphors and vague phrasing, I would say: “Orwell is a tall tree and I am a
sprout, only recently having poked my head out of the soil. I am overwhelmed
like the prisoner who escaped Plato’s cave, blinded from only just seeing
light, while Orwell is, how do I put it? Heavily sunburnt.” There I completely
replaced the information, though my point is perceivable. I think there is some
room in essay writing for poetic relief, given the appropriate informal
circumstances (in this case, a blog entry).
I appreciate the
inspirational tone in the conclusion of the essay in an attempt to persuade me
to try and change habit, if even for my own benefit. To apply oneself to
helping people think more clearly and more easily express that human thought -
without the clutter of unnecessary factors - is admirable, and I am already
observing my writing in new ways because of it. Though Orwell probably had
civilization as a whole in mind, I can imagine he’d have been pleased to know
that.
References
Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and
the English Language. Horizon, 8
No comments:
Post a Comment