Work Essays Politics and the English Language by George Orwell.pdf

Work : Essays : Politics and the English

Language

(May 1945)

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad

way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our

civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the

general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental

archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies

the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for

our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it

is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a

cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on

indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the

more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English

language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of

our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is

reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by

imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of

these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political

regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern

of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning

of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the

English language as it is now habitually written.

These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad -- I could have quoted

far worse if I had chosen -- but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we

now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number

them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:

1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not

unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter

in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce

him to tolerate.

Professor

Harold

Laski

(Essay in Freedom of Expression )

2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes

egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for

bewilder .

Professor Lancelot Hogben ( Interglossia )

3. 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. But on the other side ,the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual

reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very

picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either

personality or fraternity?

Essay on psychology in Politics (New York )

4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united

in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary

movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of

poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the

agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the

revolutionary way out of the crisis.

Communist pamphlet

5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious

reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C.

Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be

sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of

Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. 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, inhibited,

school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!

Letter in Tribune

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities

are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The

writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is

almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and

sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of

any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the

abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists

less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked

together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. I list below, with notes and examples, various

of the tricks by means of which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged:

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on

the other hand a metaphor which is technically "dead" (e.g. iron resolution ) has in effect reverted

to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these

two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and

are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples

are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder

to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters,

on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed . Many of these are used without

knowledge of their meaning (what is a "rift," for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are

frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors

now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being

aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is

the hammer and the anvil , now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it.

In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who

stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and

nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of

symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be

subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make

itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the

elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a

verb becomes a phrase , made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb

such as prove, serve, form, play, render . In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in

preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds ( by examination of

instead of by examining ). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de-

formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un-

formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to,

having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and

the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be

desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of

serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion , and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical,

effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate ,

are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased

judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old,

inevitable, inexorable, veritable , are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics,

while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic colour, its characteristic words

being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion .

Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis

mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung , are used to give an air of culture and

elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g. and etc. , there is no real need for any of the

hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially

scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or

Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate,

predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous , and hundreds of others constantly gain

ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers. The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing ( hyena, hangman,

cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard , etc.) consists

largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new

word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size

formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind ( deregionalize, impermissible,

extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one's

meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it

is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words

like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality , as used in art criticism,

are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but

are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding feature of

Mr. X's work is its living quality," while another writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr.

X's work is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words

like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living , he would see at

once that language was being used in an improper way. 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 regime 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. Words of this kind are

often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private

definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like

Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church

is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in

variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science,

progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality .

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of

the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going

to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known

verse from Ecclesiastes :

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the

strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet

favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that

success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate

with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must

invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches

of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning

and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete

illustrations -- race, battle, bread -- dissolve into the vague phrases "success or failure in

competitive activities." This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing --

no one capable of using phrases like "objective considerations of contemporary phenomena" --

would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern

prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first

contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The

second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots,

and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase ("time and

chance") that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in

spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first.

Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do

not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will

occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the

uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence

than to the one from Ecclesiastes . As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not

consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make

the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been

set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of

this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In

my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think . If you use ready-made

phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with the

rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less

euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when you are dictating to a stenographer, for

instance, or making a public speech -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags

like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us

would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale

metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning

vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The

sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist

octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot -- it can be taken as

certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is

not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor

Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of

the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip -- alien for akin -- making further nonsense, and

several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2)

plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving

of the everyday phrase put up with , is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what

it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one

could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4),

the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes

him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People

who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning -- they dislike one thing and

want to express solidarity with another -- but they are not interested in the detail of what they are

saying. 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:

1. Could I put it more shortly?

2. 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. The 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.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will

generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a

"party line." Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The

political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White papers and the

speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one

almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired

hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial, atrocities, iron heel,

bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: