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Titolo: POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUIAGE 1946 G. ORWELL

POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1946)
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 towards 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 samples. 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 such egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic
PUT UP WITH for TOLERATE or PUT AT A LOSS for BEWILDER.
  PROFESSOR LANCELOT HOGBEN (INTERGLOSSA)
(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 of
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-bourgeoisie 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 lee sound and of
strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like
that of Bottom in Shakespeare's 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'am-ish 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 hen-house. 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 CUDGELS FOR, TOE THE LINE, RIDE ROUGHSHOD OVER, STAND SHOULDER TO
SHOULDER WITH, PLAY INTO THE HANDS OF, AN 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 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 be aware of this, and 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, PROVE UNACCEPTABLE, MAKE
CONTACT WITH, BE SUBJECTED TO, GIVE RISE TO, GIVE GROUNDS FOR, HAVING THE
EFFECT OF, PLAY A LEADING PART (RÔLE) 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-purposes verb 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 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
from anti-climax 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, BASIS, PRIMARY, PROMOTE,
CONSTITUTE, EXHIBIT, EXPLOIT, UTILIZE, ELIMINATE, LIQUIDATE, are used to
dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to
biased judgments. Adjectives like EPOCH-MAKING, EPIC, HISTORIC,
UNFORGETTABLE, TRIUMPHANT, AGE-OLD, INEVITABLE, INEXORABLE, VERITABLE, are
used to dignify the sordid processes of international politics, while
writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, 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 RÉGIME, 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 English. 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,
SUB-AQUEOUS and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their
Anglo-Saxon opposite 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 and phrases translated
from Russian, German or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is
to use a Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where
necessary, the '-ize' formation. It is often easier to make up words of this
kind (DE-REGIONALIZE, 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.
* An interesting illustration of this is the way in which the English flower
names which were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones,
SNAPDRAGON becoming ANTIRRHINUM, FORGET-ME-NOT becoming MYOSOTIS, etc. It is
hard to see any practical reason for this change of fashion: it is probably
due to an instinctive turning-away from the more homely word and a vague
feeling that the Greek word is scientific. (Author's footnote.)
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 even 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 of 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 régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they
might have to stop using the 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
PÉTAIN 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.
* Example: "Comfort's catholicity of perception and image, strangely
Whitmanesque in range, almost the exact opposite in aesthetic compulsion,
continues to evoke that trembling atmospheric accumulative hinting at a
cruel, an inexorably serene timelessness . . . Wrey Gardiner scores by
aiming at simple bullseyes with precision. Only they are not so simple, and
through this contented sadness runs more than the surface bittersweet of
resignation." (POETRY QUARTERLY.) (Author's footnote.)
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 favor to men of skill; but time and chance
happeneth
Here it is in modern English:
  Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels 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
phrase "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 consideration 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 49 words but only 60 syllables, and
all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains 38 words of 90
syllables: 18 of its 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 90 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 A NOT UNJUSTIFIABLE ASSUMPTION THAT than to
say I THINK. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt
about for 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 53 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: 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.
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 color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political
dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White
Papers and the speeches of under-secretaries do, of course, vary from party
to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a
fresh, vivid, home-made 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 curious feeling that one is not watching a live
human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes
stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and
turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this
is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has
gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine. The appropriate
noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it
would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is
making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be
almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the
responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not
indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the
indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the
Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan,
can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most
people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political
parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism,
question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are
bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the
cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is
called PACIFICATION. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent
trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called
TRANSFER OF POPULATION or RECTIFICATION OF FRONTIERS. People are imprisoned
for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of
scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called ELIMINATION OF UNRELIABLE
ELEMENTS. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without
calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable
English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright,
"I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by
doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:
While freely 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.
The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words
falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up
all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When
there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it
were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish
squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of
politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of
lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere
is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find-this is a guess which
I have not sufficient knowledge to verify-that the German, Russian and
Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years as
a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad
usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should
and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in
some ways very convenient. Phrases like A NOT UNJUSTIFIABLE ASSUMPTION,
LEAVES MUCH TO BE DESIRED, WOULD SERVE NO GOOD PURPOSE, A CONSIDERATION
WHICH WE SHOULD DO WELL TO BEAR IN MIND, are a continuous temptation, a
packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through this essay, and
for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very
faults I am protesting against. By this morning's post I have received a
pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he
"felt impelled" to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the
first sentence that I see: "[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of
achieving a radical transformation of Germany's social and political
structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany
itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a cooperative and
unified Europe." You see, he "feels impelled" to write-feels, presumably,
that he has something new to say-and yet his words, like cavalry horses
answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary
pattern. This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (LAY THE
FOUNDATIONS, ACHIEVE A RADICAL TRANSFORMATION) can only be prevented if one
is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anesthetizes a
portion of one's brain.
I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those
who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that
language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot
influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and
constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this
may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have
often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the
conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were EXPLORE EVERY
AVENUE and LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED, which were killed by the jeers of a few
journalists. There is a long list of fly-blown metaphors which could
similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the
job; and it should also be possible to laugh the NOT 'UN-' formation out of
existence, * to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average
sentence, to drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in
general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor
points. The defense of the English language implies more than this, and
perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does NOT imply.
* One can cure oneself of the NOT 'UN-' formation by memorizing this
sentence: A NOT UNBLACK DOG WAS CHASING A NOT UNSMALL RABBIT ACROSS A NOT
UNGREEN FIELD. (Author's footnote.)
To begin with, it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of
obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting-up of a
"standard-English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is
especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has
outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and
syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear,
or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a "good
prose style." On the other hand it is not concerned with fake simplicity and
the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in
every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply
using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning. What is
above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other
way about. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender
them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then,
if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably
hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think
of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and
unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will
come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even
changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long
as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures or
sensations. Afterwards one can choose-not simply ACCEPT-the phrases that
will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what
impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last
effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated
phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one
can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs
rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules
will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are
used to seeing in print.
(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 barbarous.
These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change
of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now
fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one
could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in these five specimens at
the beginning of this article.
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely
language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or
preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that
all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for
advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism
is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such
absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political
chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably
bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify
your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot
speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its
stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language-and with
variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to
Anarchists-is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this
all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time
to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and
useless phrase-some JACKBOOT, ACHILLES' HEEL, HOTBED, MELTING POT, ACID
TEST, VERITABLE INFERNO or other lump of verbal refuse-into the dustbin
where it belongs.

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.
Un uomo puň cominciare a darsi al bere perché si sente un fallito, e poi
fallire del tutto perché si č dato al bere. Lo stesso sta capitando alla
lingua inglese (e a quelle occidentali, aggiungerei io). Diventa sempre piů
grezza e inaccurata perché č veicolo dei nostri pensieri sempre piů
sciocchi, e il suo decadimento ci porta altresě ad  avere pensieri sempre
piů sciocchi e inaccurati...





Beppe Severgnini, 




Domanda secca: perché gli inglesi 
e gli americani sono tanto interessati a come parlano e scrivono, e noi no? I 
libri sulla lingua, di là della Manica e dell'oceano, diventano best-seller: dai 
noi vengono accolti con stracche recensioni. Ho un sospetto: noi italiani siamo 
convinti che la lingua non si ama, si usa. E poi succeda quel che deve 
succedere. L'Accademia della Crusca, com'è noto, non è d'accordo, e mette in 
campo degne persone. Ma sventolare quel nome agreste - lo dico con affetto - 
vuol dire partire in salita: quattro quinti della nazione non hai mai visto il 
frumento, figuriamoci se s'appassiona alla crusca. 
L'inglese, invece, sembra 
provocare reazioni sanguigne: più aumentano quelli che lo maltrattano 
(all'estero, e non solo) più si eccitano quelli che lo difendono. La notizia del 
successo di "Eats, Shoots and Leaves - The Zero Tolerance Approach to 
Punctuation" è arrivata anche in Italia: l'autrice Lynne Truss, come dice il 
sottotitolo, propone "tolleranza zero" in materia di punteggiatura. Non riesco a 
immaginare qualcosa del genere in Italia, dove il punto e virgola, pur così 
sexy, è stato abbandonato; e molta gente ha ceduto al ricatto dei telefonini, 
scrivendo " un pò " (accento) invece di " un po' " (apostrofo).
C'è 
ovviamente di peggio. Invece di portare la lingua quotidiana sui monumenti, 
abbiamo accettato che la lingua dei monumenti conquistasse la vita quotidiana. 
In pubblico, la gente dice lustri e non cinque anni, volto e non faccia, ventre 
e non pancia. Presenta omaggi, e non fa regali. Molti esordiscono con 
Chiarissimo scrivendo a professori universitari specialisti in manovre oscure, e 
tutti chiudono le lettere con Voglia gradire i più distinti saluti. Chi li 
distingue, quei saluti? Nessuno. Ma il mittente si sente tranquillo.
Ricordo 
Silvio Berlusconi, al tempo degli ostaggi in Iraq: il presidente del Consiglio 
non diceva "Continuiamo a parlare...", ma "Abbiamo un'interlocuzione 
continuativa...". Il movente psicologico è lo stesso che lo spinge a usare "Mi 
consenta...": un'insicurezza verbale di fondo, che attraversa la società 
italiana come una corrente (da Palazzo Chigi alle case popolari). Il linguaggio 
come polizza di assicurazione. Anzi: come vestito buono da indossare per le 
fotografie, e poi rimettere nell'armadio.
Non è solo la lingua ufficiale a 
comportarsi così. I nostri discorsi sono disseminati di segnali di cautela e 
d'incertezza. "In Veneto - mi diceva un veneto - molti iniziano le frasi dicendo 
Con rispetto parlando... Quando chiedono nome e cognome, a Venezia e a Padova 
c'è chi risponde: "Mi saria Tonon Giovanni..". Io sarei Giovanni Tonon: ma 
potrei essere anche qualcun altro, se risultasse necessario". Lo stesso, 
universale, italianissimo "ciao" deriva da schiao (pronuciato sciao). In 
dialetto veneto: schiavo, servo suo. Un esordio umile, poi si vedrà. 
Avete 
letto fin qui? Buon segno: vuol dire che, sebbene pochi scrivano di queste cose 
(lode a due veneti, Paolo Marchi e il nostro Giulio Nascimbeni!), i lettori sono 
interessati. Ed è bene che sia così. La lingua cattiva è poco efficace, e spesso 
è fraudolenta. Lo sosteneva George Orwell nel 1946 ("Politics and the English 
Language"), e resta vero. Chi difende la buona lingua non difende la noia, né 
rifiuta le innovazioni. "Palloso", per esempio, è un neologismo fascinoso, utile 
per descrivere i discorsi di chi non sa parlare e i testi di chi non sa 
scrivere. 
E' irritante invece l'uso di "assolutamente sì" al posto di "sì" 
(perché sprecare sei sillabe?) e la confusione tra "attitudine" (che vuol dire 
"predisposizione") e atteggiamento (che significa "disposizione"): certo, in 
inglese "attitude" vuol dire "atteggiamento", ma che c'entra? Confondere i due 
vocaboli è un errore. Fatelo notare, alla prima occasione, ma senza esagerare. 
Scrive Richard Jenkyns, professore (non palloso) di Oxford: "In materia, la 
regola è semplice: resistere finché si può, ma quando la battaglia è perduta, 
arrendersi". Mi sembra l'attitudine giusta. Scusate, l'atteggiamento. (dal 
Corriere della Sera)
 



 più sciocchi e inaccurati...
Ehm... Senza offesa ma queste vacue affermazioni sono esattamente ciò che
definirei "pensiero sciocco e inaccurato".
--
Cingar
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 Cingar
ma offesa per me o per Orwell, e comunque il saggio andrebbe letto tutto,
poi criticato semmai, certo Orwell era un semplificatore, ma non pare anche
a voi che molti usino la lingua in maniera imprecisa, vaga, e alla fine
inutilmente?
La frase che sepsso si sente dire ai giovani ignoranti "prima di parlare
assicurati d che il cervello sia collegato" (frase che io ho sempre sentito
dire a delle persone CHE per prime NON mettevano in pratica il consiglio, ma
non è sintomo che persino il voglo si accorge che per il più del tempo
parliamo e scriviamo di aria fritta, invece di veicolare concetti precisi e
concreti e tangibili.
Paragonate solo a quanta capacità di trasportare significati c'è in
un'equazione matematica, pur nella sua brevità, e quanta poca capacità di
portare significati c'è in un qualche discorso lunghissimo di un politico o
di un commenatore televisivo...
Il saggio di Orwell sondava un problema che era ed è abbastanza evidente,
non pare anche a voi?
Amleto, il danese.

 [...]
Yawwwwwn! Che uomo palloso.
--
Cingar
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 abbastanza evidente, non pare anche a voi?
Era troppo lungo e non ho letto che qualche riga, scusa.
-- 
oggi no, domani sì

 Era troppo lungo e non ho letto che qualche riga, scusa.
POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1946)
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 towards 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
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PROFESSOR LANCELOT HOGBEN (INTERGLOSSA)
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Communist pamphlet
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that of Bottom in Shakespeare’s MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM—as gentle as any
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Letter in TRIBUNE
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the concrete illustrations—race, battle, bread—dissolve into the vague
phrase “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 consideration 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 49
words but only 60 syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life.
The second contains 38 words of 90 syllables: 18 of its 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 90 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 A NOT UNJUSTIFIABLE ASSUMPTION THAT
than to say I THINK. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t
have to hunt about for 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 53 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: 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.
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 color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style.
The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles,
manifestoes, White Papers and the speeches of under-secretaries do, of
course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one
almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made 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 curious
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find—this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify—that
the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the
last ten or fifteen years as a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad
usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should
and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in
some ways very convenient. Phrases like A NOT UNJUSTIFIABLE ASSUMPTION,
LEAVES MUCH TO BE DESIRED, WOULD SERVE NO GOOD PURPOSE, A CONSIDERATION
WHICH WE SHOULD DO WELL TO BEAR IN MIND, are a continuous temptation, a
packet of aspirins always at one’s elbow. Look back through this essay,
and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the
very faults I am protesting against. By this morning’s post I have
received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells
me that he “felt impelled” to write it. I open it at random, and here is
almost the first sentence that I see: “[The Allies] have an opportunity
not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany’s social and
political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in
Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a
cooperative and unified Europe.” You see, he “feels impelled” to
write—feels, presumably, that he has something new to say—and yet his
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Afterwards one can choose—not simply ACCEPT—the phrases that will best
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Political language—and with variations this is true of all political
parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound
truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to
pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least
change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers
loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase—some JACKBOOT,
ACHILLES’ HEEL, HOTBED, MELTING POT, ACID TEST, VERITABLE INFERNO or other
lump of verbal refuse—into the dustbin where it belongs.


 Yawwwwwn! Che uomo palloso.
Beh, proprio l'altro giorno sentivo di un giocatore di tennis che era sceso
in campo con una buona attitudine.
Ciao, FB
-- 
Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry. 'She was determined to drop his
acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she had never been
acquainted with him at all'. (Jane Austen)