As I start writing this response to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," I find that I am more hesitant than usual. I feel like I'm in danger of doing the kind of writing he blames for the "general collapse" of the English language. Worse, you'll all now be aware of the fact that my writing is bad.
Ah, well. The part of Orwell's argument that I found most interesting was the idea that meaning should choose words, rather than words dictating meaning. It's true that we often get so concerned with sounding intelligent that we forget to make our actual point. Using too many words is just as dangerous as using the wrong ones, since our meaning can get lost or even changed in the midst of all the letters. I also often fall victim (case in point) (again) to cliched metaphors and phrases. It's easy to rely on these words to try to describe something, even if they don't actually describe what we think they do.
Especially in political writing and speaking, where meaning is essential, I think Orwell is right that we need to concentrate on being more succinct and exact. However, given the nature of politics, this is very difficult. "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." Politicians use metaphors, and especially euphemisms to make their points more palatable to the public. Very few would vote for a politicians who advocated the total destructionof a village and its people, and so politicians frame such ideas under the guise of "spreading democracy" or "achieving liberation for an oppressed people." Not only is this type of language bad, its also dangerous.
I felt that same way when I started my response, but I think Orwell is a little too harsh in his critique of writing. I think that, of course, as time goes on metaphors and similes that are relied on because they are so widely known are going to become cliched. But why are these common phrases so bad? We refer to them negatively, yet they are so common because everyone knows them and can relate to them.
ReplyDeleteOrwell's issue with couches and metaphors is that we rely so heavily on them to say what we're trying to say. Also, when we start an argument, we sometimes use the cliches todevelop what we're trying to say. Doing this allows us to enter arguments in which we have no real stance, and to use words without ever actually saying anything worthwhile. Also, the overabundance of cliches in our speech has weakened their meanings. Now, we often say things that either make no sense (because we use them how we think they're supposed to be used, rather than paying attention to what they actually mean), or that are just a string of cliches put together.
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