george orwell politics and the english language

Once the normalized, Orwell warns, aspiring dictators can more easily engage in linguistic trickery.

In the process, bad writers lose their grip on reality, allowing junked-up prose to create a “gap between one's real and one's declared aims.” These writers, he explains, exchange truth for convincing as they pull together words without “really thinking.”Īccording to Orwell, inflated style circulates through society like a disease, rotting the brains of writers and readers.

Orwell uses these passages to identify the elements of bad writing, such as “inflated prose” or a “mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence.” In describing the features of “inflated prose,” Orwell posits that laziness is the primary driver of “inflated style.” That is, instead choosing words and phrases carefully, lazy writers use inflated style to grab whatever smart-sounding words and phrases they have on hand. Reading each passage, it’s difficult (if not impossible) to make out the writer’s point. He begins by listing a series of passages. Orwell then takes a step back to what explain constitutes bad writing. He contends that language is both prescriptive and descriptive of civilization’s decline. Language, he argues, also shapes society. Orwell claims language doesn’t just reflect the condition society. That is, language only reflects the state of the world. Specifically, Orwell claims that most readers-even those who think language and politics are in a bad state-presume that language is merely a mirror of society. Orwell starts with the premise that the distortion of “language” reflects a “corruption” of “civilization.” But Orwell objects to the conclusion he believes readers usually draw from this initial premise.

George Orwell’s central argument is that the normalization of bad writing leads to political oppression.

George orwell politics and the english language