John F. Allen's Blog at jfallen.org

2nd September 2014

Politics and the English Language

Filed under: — John Allen @ 9:52 am

The essay focuses on political language, which, according to Orwell, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Orwell believed that the language used was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it.

Wikipedia contributors. Politics and the English Language. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. July 25, 2014, 20:54 UTC. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Politics_and_the_English_Language&oldid=618464041. Accessed September 2, 2014.

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 spurting out ink.

George Orwell. Politics and the English Language. Wikilivres. Available at: http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language. Accessed September 2. 2014.

Use of words in misuse of power | John F. Allen’s blog

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress