What You'll Learn:
George Orwell of 1984 fame reflects on the poor state of the English language and its corrosive effect on political life. He points out recurring problems with the popular communication style, like vagaries and cliché images, and suggests practical ways we can move English—and with it, politics—in a more constructive direction.
Key Insights:
- Language is a natural growth, but that doesn’t mean that the growth can’t be redirected through conscious effort.
- Vagaries and stale metaphors plague professional writing in numerous fields.
- Dying metaphors, meaningless filler words, and pretentious vocabulary are common ways to evade the hard work of writing good prose.
- We use hackneyed phrases, dying metaphors and vague language to avoid the hard work of thinking.
- Politicians surrender their humanity when they mechanically churn out clichés that no longer mean anything.
- The arch nemesis of clarity is insincerity.
- By changing the way we write and rejecting the popular style, English and politics may become clearer.
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