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.

Those who consider the English language to be in ruins would resign themselves to its ongoing decline. Any efforts to revitalize the use of language or attempts to preserve what remains are relegated to a sentimental view of glory days that will never return—at least not through conscious exertion.

The underlying assumption here is that language is an entirely natural outgrowth of culture rather than a tool that can be used to shape culture. The decline of English can’t be traced to particular writers. There are larger political and economic factors that have led to its disintegration, but effects can reinforce causes, becoming causes in their own right, exacerbating effects in a vicious cycle. Consider the alcoholic, who drinks to drown his shame for drinking so much. Something similar is happening to the English language: it’s become more crude and less precise as a result of imbecilic thinking, but by tolerating sloppy language, we enable further imbecility.

The good news is that the process is reversible. Bad habits in spoken (and especially written) English are spread through imitation. If we drop these bad habits, we begin to speak and write more clearly. More precise language lays the foundation for revitalized politics. English matters, and not just for grade school grammar teachers; it matters for us all because of its impact on politics.

It is not difficult to find instances of the English language getting butchered, even in reputable publications and among the highly educated.

Here are a few examples of butchery:

“I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelly had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.”

This excerpt comes from a piece written by Dr. Harold Laski. It’s painful. Wading through molasses would be less arduous. Professor Laski uses five negatives in a sentence that’s 53 words long. High marks for pedantry, but if clarity is what we’re after (and it is), Laski lets his reader down.

Here’s another example:

“On the one side we have the free personality; by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous.”

This was taken from a piece published in Politics. It is so full of abstractions that it is meaningless, at worst; and, at best, it would require reading the entire article to discover what the author is attempting to communicate.

Here’s a final monstrosity to examine:

“A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes, or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as “standard English.” When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o’clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, school-ma’amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens.”

In this passage, words and meaning are only barely connected. People who hate one thing and want to commend its opposite often get so carried away expressing deep emotion that they fail to pause over the details of their criticism or praise. It seems the author did not once ask himself, “What am I actually trying to say?” or “Is there a simpler way to say this?”

These examples are not even the worst of what’s in print. There are flaws unique to each of the passages, but two mistakes common to them all are cliché imagery and imprecise language. These two tendencies plague English prose, especially political writing. More and more, sentences are comprised not of words chosen for their particular meaning, but a build by stringing together meaningless phrases. Rare is the political speech that doesn’t resort to these tactics.

One method of evasion is dying metaphors. Good imagery consists of either fresh phrases that enhance the writing or dead images, phrases that have become part of convention but read like ordinary language without detracting from the writing’s vibrancy. “Iron resolution” would be an example of a dead metaphor. In between fresh images and dead images are heaps of dying metaphors, images in their death throes, that are neither new, creative inventions nor completely dead, but anemic analogies that no longer have any evocative power.

Examples of dying metaphors would be “toe the line,” “stand shoulder to shoulder with,” “an axe to grind,” “Achilles’ heel,” and so on. Such images are tired. Metaphors are often mixed in illogical ways. Many will use a dying metaphor without a clue as to its meaning. The phrase about “the hammer and the anvil” is often used to suggest that the anvil is the unfortunate party in that relationship, but it is the hammer that breaks on the recalcitrant anvil. Stacked and twisted metaphors in their death throes are signs that the writer is not thinking about what he’s writing. Fresh and dead imagery is acceptable, but dying metaphors have to go.

A second way that people evade the hard work of writing is false verbal limbs or operators. Words and phrases like “militate against,” “prove unacceptable,” “having the effect of,” “give grounds for,” and “serve the purpose of”  are verbal lard that take up unnecessary space. They may even add symmetry to a sentence, but are ultimately superfluous. Simple verbs like “break,” “stop,” “spoil,” and “mend” are fine.

Pretentious diction is yet another labor-saver. Words such as “phenomenon,” “objective,” “categorical,” “constitute,” “exhibit,” and “liquidate” give a neutral, scientific sense to writing. Descriptors like “historic,” “triumphant,” “age-old,” and “veritable” are supercilious attempts at hallowing politics. Foreign and antiquated words and phrases like deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, weltanschauung, and acien régime all suggest culture and sophistication. Writers in sociology, science, and politics are the chief offenders here. They seem to believe that the Greek and Latin words are more elegant than simpler Saxon words.

There are also meaningless words that people hide behind. Words like class, totalitarian, science, progress, equality, and democracy are used rather dishonestly, because they mean different things to different people, meanings that are contradictory. For many, “fascist” is another way of saying, “I don’t like this or that.”  

Why do we write this way? It’s easier. We say something without really thinking about what we’re saying. The pre-packaged phrases that people throw around save us the trouble. What is more, these go-to phrases already have a rhythmic cadence to them, so we often feel a sense of pride in what we’ve strung together, mistaking it for our own ingenuity.

A good and careful writer asks himself a series of questions as he writes: What do I actually want to say? What words will help me express that idea? What turn-of-phrase or analogy will make that idea even clearer? Is there life in the image or is it bland? Can I make this sentence more concise? Have I written anything that’s unnecessarily ugly?

Of course, no one is obligated to ask these questions or to write carefully. You can, like everyone else, pick the phrases that litter the path of least resistance and readily clamor for your attention when you’re inattentive. These phrases will build sentences for you, almost think your thoughts for you. Relying on such phrases will also obscure meaning from others and even from yourself. With meaning at stake, we see where English language intersects with politics, and why its abuse can be dangerous.

What recent speech doesn’t rely on clichés like “free people of the world” or “bloodstained tyranny” or “standing shoulder to shoulder”? Politicians today act more like machines than humans, mindlessly uttering commonplace phrases. When the politician succumbs to the kinds of lifeless words and phrases long devoid of resonance, he has surrendered the creativity that makes him human. He relies on his throat and voice box to make his speech, but his brain is uninvolved. His statements become unconscious and perfunctory, much like the churchgoer reciting creeds. Orthodoxy of any shade requires a dry, derivative manner.

The politician who does speak plainly is considered a renegade who cannot or refuses to conform to the party’s image. He’s accused of espousing private opinions rather than political ones.

In our current political climate, many speeches and written works are attempted in defense of the indefensible. Consider the British Raj in India, Russia’s purges, and nuclear bombs falling on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Politicians can only defend these actions by resorting to their mechanical, impersonal style, because the arguments defending such policies are too bald and harsh for most people to stomach. Euphemisms and vagaries to the rescue!

Airstrikes on frustrated but defenseless villagers and gunning down their livestock is part of “pacification.” Millions of poor farmers driven from their homes and farms is called a “population transfer” or “rectification of frontiers.” People are jailed and slaughtered without a trial or sent to die in Siberian labor camps, and this is called “elimination of unreliable elements.” Such labels evade images of butchery and violence and the outrage that those images would and should evince.

Consider the English professor, defending Russian totalitarianism from the comfort of a lecture hall or café. It’s too harsh to say plainly, “I think it is justifiable to kill rivals in order to achieve desirable outcomes.” It’s more likely that he will say something like:

“While conceding that the Soviet régime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.”

This grandiose manner of writing is euphemistic. It obscures the full force of an argument, rather than making it more plain. The Latin words are like a blizzard of snowflakes that fall gently but cover up the contours of something very ugly, and should be seen as such.

These critiques are not an attempt to standardize or freeze English. It is not an attempt to revitalize archaic words. It is an attempt to expel the words and phrases that have outlived their usefulness.

Here are some general guidelines to avoid the pitfalls of today’s popular writing style.

a. Never use an analogy or metaphor that’s often seen in print.

b. Never use a long word when a short word works fine.

c. Excise excess words whenever you can.

d. Use the active voice instead of the passive.

e. Never use foreign words or scientific jargon when simple, common English will convey the same.

f. Break any of these rules before writing something vicious or destructive.

If these rules sound basic, it’s because they are. You can follow all these rules and still write something horrible, but it is difficult to write something like the examples of painfully unclear English mentioned earlier. The author concedes that it is likely that he himself, in this very essay, has inadvertently fallen into some of the same tropes and traps he is criticizing. These mistakes are in the air we breathe. Still, by avoiding these temptations in our writing and rejecting them when we see them, the English language can be gradually be revived, and politics with it.