Writers who use a pen name run the risk - or enjoy the benefit - that if they achieve huge fame, their assumed surname will enter common use as an adjective rather than their real one. Eric Blair, known to history as George Orwell, didn’t live long enough to see “Orwellian” become a frequently used and abused staple of many languages. The term is most closely associated with ideas in his novel 1984, which was published in 1949 before Orwell passed away less than a year later. In our time, commentators of the left, right and elsewhere all routinely wield it as a political weapon and claim the author as one of their own. The word’s meaning sometimes appears blurred by excessive, contradictory, and imprecise use.
Anyone who reads Orwell’s 1946 essay Politics and the English Language suspects that he would have detested “Orwellian” in this current form. The below excerpt from the essay itself suggests why:
“Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning.”
“Orwellian” has ironically become one of these abused words. Few would object to its use in describing the North Korean dictatorship, but the term is just as often deployed to smear any use of power by “the other side” that one dislikes. Orwell’s own legacy contributes to this ability for people across the political spectrum to claim him as their own. Although he consistently professed strong left wing political views, he’s best known for two novels, Animal Farm and 1984, which excoriated the Stalinist totalitarianism that many other leftists of his time were apologists for. His memoir Homage to Catalonia also damaged orthodox Communism in the 20th century, while other works addressed topics like British imperialism, working class life and other literary / intellectual concerns of his day.
We focused on Politics and the English Language for today’s post instead of the longer form classics because we think it’s one of the most relevant Orwell works for our intended goals at Citizen Scholar. In 1946, the great contrarian was convinced that the English language was in trouble. Contrary to others’ belief that its decline was irreversible and a natural symptom of a decadent civilization, Orwell was convinced that it could be restored via conscious effort. He viewed the degenerative process as a reflexive one that could be stopped by instilling better habits about the selection of words.
A few bad habits identified as common at the time include “dying metaphors”, “operators of verbal false limbs”, “pretentious diction” and “meaningless words”. We encourage readers to refer to the essay itself for Orwell’s definitions of these devices, but it suffices to say here that (a) these are probably more common today than they were in 1946 and (b) Orwell’s problem with all of these was their stale imagery, imprecision and lazy or dishonest use by writers.
“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? 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? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.”
Orwell goes on to point out how political figures debase language by using euphemisms and other tools to conceal their true meaning and to defend the indefensible. This problem is spread by the imitation of others until it becomes tradition. He encourages sincere thinking expressed via clear writing as the solution – “let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about”. Orwell’s reader also receives a set of six rules that help stick to this goal in practice:
i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (includes the dead metaphors Orwell references earlier, which are formulated by someone else and overused until they lose their power to evoke meaningful imagery)
ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Our interest in this essay’s arguments is broader than just its implications for politics or its tips / rules for improving writing. The Citizen Scholar team is attracted to the high, perhaps unattainable, standard that Orwell sets for clear and honest communication. We’ll keep it in mind as the ultimate ideal, while recalling that Orwell acknowledges his own violations of his own rules throughout the essay itself.
In one view, this fight against the abuse of language in insincere speech has already been lost. Today, “corporate speak” is at least as riddled with the vices Orwell identified as political speech is. Ready-made phrases, euphemisms and all sorts of vague language exist to express unpleasant, distasteful, or half-baked thoughts in professional and other spheres of life. Rather than dwelling on this refutation of Orwell’s ideas, we’d prefer to use Politics and the English Language as a guide to make sure we (a) tell the truth with the highest fidelity possible and (b) spot the habits of language in texts we cover and draw the right conclusions about their precision and honest meaning.
In the meantime, let us know your thoughts in the comment section below! What do you think about Politics and the English Language, our post or Orwell’s other works? Please be gentle with pointing out each example of where we violated Orwell’s rules in this very post. He did it too!
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