POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE George Orwell--Detailed summary

 POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Detailed Summary

George Orwell

Writing about the condition of the English language in modern times, Orwell says that the language is in “a bad way”. The general belief is that nothing can be done about it “by conscious action”.

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.

The decline of a language has political and economic causes. No individual writer is the reason for the degeneration.

Language becomes “ugly and inaccurate” when thoughts are foolish. At the same time, the untidiness of the language makes it easy to have silly ideas. Orwell says 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.

Orwell provides us with “five specimens of the English language”,  as written in modern times.

Each of the quoted passages has “faults of its own”. They are also ugly. They have two common qualities: “staleness of imagery” and “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.

Orwell lists the various tricks writers use to dodge the difficulties of prose construction. 

Dying metaphors.

A newly invented metaphor evokes a visual image. A dead metaphor (e.g. iron resolution) has become a common word, and we can use it without “loss of vividness”. In between these two categories, there is a “huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power”. These are used by the people to save the trouble of “inventing phrases for themselves”. Orwell gives numerous examples of such metaphors:

 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.

People use them without understanding their proper meaning. Sometimes these are twisted out of their original sense.

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.

Orwell provides us with examples of the “characteristic phrases”: 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.

The significant feature here is the elimination of simple verbs. The simple 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”.

Render inoperative = halt, stop, arrest, disable

Militate against = avert, oppose, reverse, discredit

Give rise to = produce, cause, generate, engender

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.

Orwell laughs at the last-mentioned through a humorous example:

A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.

 

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.

·      Pretentious diction is used to “dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements”.

Examples: Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as a noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, and liquidate.

·      Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics.

·      Words like realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, and clarion used to glorify war.

·      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.

Hundreds of foreign phrases are now used in the English language. But, except for “useful abbreviations” like i.e., e.g., etc., there is no need for them. 

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.

Jargons like hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc. originate from Russian, German, or French. It is easy to create words of this kind 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 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.

 

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, and justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, there is no agreed definition…every kind of regime claims that it is a democracy.

 

Such words are often used in a “consciously dishonest” manner.  The person who uses them has his own “private definition” but “allows his hearer to think he means something quite different”.

 

After providing a list of “swindles and perversions”, Orwell gives another example of the kind of writing they lead to. He translates a passage from Ecclesiastes into modern English “of the worst sort”.

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.

Orwell compares the two passages and points out:

·      The “concrete illustrations” — race, battle, bread—(of the first) dissolve into the vague phrases "success or failure in competitive activities" (in the second).

·      That is not surprising from a modern writer who uses phrases like "objective considerations of contemporary phenomena". Moreover, “the whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness”.

·      “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”. It is not yet universal.  “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 the second sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes”.

·      Modern writing does not pick out words for their meaning and invent images to make the meaning clearer. It strings together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else.

·      “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 than to say I think.”

·      With ready-made phrases, we need not hunt about for the words; we also need not bother with the rhythms of the sentences.

·      When in hurry, dictating to a stenographer, 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…”

·      The use of “stale metaphors, similes, and idioms” leaves the meaning vague but saves much mental strain.

·      “The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image”. By using mixed metaphors—“the Fascist octopus has sung its swan song” — the “writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words,  he is not really thinking.”

Orwell points out what a scrupulous writer will do in every sentence he writes. Such a one 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?

Using the ready-made phrase, anyone can shirk that responsibility. The phrases “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”.

Politics and the debasement of language.

At this point, Orwell explains, “the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear”.

Ø It is “broadly true that political writing is bad writing.”

Ø Political writing “demands a lifeless, imitative style”.

Ø The writing may “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”.

Ø When watching some “tired hack on the platform” mechanically repeating phrases like 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”.

Ø At certain moments the light falls on the speaker’s spectacles turning them into “blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them”.

Ø “And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward 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”.

Ø “This reduced state of consciousness… is at any rate favorable to political conformity”.

When political speech and writing try to defend the indefensible like “the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan”, the language “has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness”.

Defenceless 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, 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. An English professor defending Russian totalitarianism will argue that “a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods”.

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. 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.

Orwell believes that the German, Russian and Italian languages have “all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship”.

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 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.

We can prevent the invasion of our minds with ready-made phrases only by constantly on guard against them. Every such phrase “anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain”.

Orwell believes the corruption of language is “curable”.

·      Silly words and expressions have disappeared owing to the “conscious action of a minority”. Two recent examples were to explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned.  These were killed by “the jeers of a few journalists”.

·      There is a long list of “flyblown metaphors” which could be got rid of if enough people try.

·      It is possible to reduce the number of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, “to drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable”.

Orwell admits that the defence of the English language implies more   than what is stated above. He thinks it better to start with what “the defence of English” does not imply.

·      To begin with it has “nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech”, or with "standard English".

·      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 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”.

·      It does not imply preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it recommends the using of the “fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning”.

What is needed to defend the English language?

What is needed is to let “the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around”. In prose, the worst thing is to surrender to words.

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 and sensations. Afterwards one can choose 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”.

Such an effort cuts out all “stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness” generally. But one may doubt the effect of a word or a phrase and may need reliable rules when instinct fails. Orwell thinks the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or another 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 outright barbarous.

Orwell warns that the rules “demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable”. One could keep all the rules and still write bad English but one could never “write the kind of stuff” cited in several specimens in the essay.

In conclusion, Orwell comments that political language 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.

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Dr. S. Sreekumar, Retd. Professor of English

Disclaimer 

All the essays in this blog are for the undergraduate and postgraduate students of Indian Universities. They do not substitute the originals.  The students must necessarily go through the original texts. The writer hopes to help the students from the underdeveloped areas of our country.