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Orwell Essay: Politics And The English Language

31 points by astrec 18y ago

astrec 18y ago
Looking at my inbox this rings true: The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.
noonespecial 18y ago
Thats really cool. I had never read that. In doing so, its easy to see now why Orwell created short powerful books. He really was concentrating on his craft and using a systematic approach to his writing. Thanks for sharing.
- astrec 18y ago
  My pleasure. I had reservations about submitting it to a hacker forum, but a second reading left no doubt.
kaens 18y ago
This is a great read, especially for anyone who's involved in any sort of "activist" stuff. I point all my friends who do any sort of political writing - which is mainly things like small local zines and such - at this. It does a great job of showing how to make a point effectively, and showing how a lot of political writing fails to do much of anything but preach to the choir. Glad to see it on here.
revorad 18y ago
Here's a good collection of Orwell's essays: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/index.html http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/in... When I first read 'Politics and the English Language', I was pleased to see the similaities between pg's essays and Orwell's thoughts about language, metaphors and good writing.
Alex3917 18y ago
Modern politics consists of framing, soundbites, talking points, context shifting, and statistics. The political essay died along with Orwell's elephant.
danw 18y ago
Orwell's diary is being republished in blog form at http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/ http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/
13ren 18y ago
I read this a decade ago, and tried to practice it. The only problem is that people pay less attention because you don't sound as impressive... OTOH maybe I can recommend it: using this approach, I did win a prize for an essay-based subject (non-computer science)... And there was another essay I wrote that one lecturer gave to another lecturer to read because it was so "stimulating". BTW: Orwell mentions "dead metaphors". There's a really cool rhetorical device called "reviving a dead metaphor". A simple way to do this is to take mixed (dead) metaphors and unmix them. The impact can be strikingly visceral. \EDIT {it's all coming back to me now... when I used metaphors in this way, they became true isomorphisms, revealing a much deeper and more informative - and even predictive - correspondence. For an example, note that the desktop metaphor is itself a dead metaphor that is also an isomorphism.} Finally: Orwell did not do well romantically. It makes one think twice about emulating him. I try to remember this test before following advice :-)
- astrec 18y ago
  The only problem is that people pay less attention because you don't sound as impressive... But as the brothers Heath show us in "Made to Stick", nobody will recall what you actually said.
jsmcgd 18y ago
For me this is the best article I have read on Hacker News in a while. More of this please! ps I got a perverse enjoyment from being scolded from beyond the grave. pps I think that's my first ironic pun
MaysonL 18y ago
I love the way he roasts the dying metaphors, spicing their remains with his own novel images: ...like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. ...phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house. ...gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else... ...an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea-leaves blocking a sink. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow,... ...give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

31 points by astrec 18y ago

Looking at my inbox this rings true: The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.

Thats really cool. I had never read that. In doing so, its easy to see now why Orwell created short powerful books. He really was concentrating on his craft and using a systematic approach to his writing. Thanks for sharing.

astrec 18y ago
My pleasure. I had reservations about submitting it to a hacker forum, but a second reading left no doubt.

kaens 18y ago

This is a great read, especially for anyone who's involved in any sort of "activist" stuff. I point all my friends who do any sort of political writing - which is mainly things like small local zines and such - at this. It does a great job of showing how to make a point effectively, and showing how a lot of political writing fails to do much of anything but preach to the choir. Glad to see it on here.

revorad 18y ago

Here's a good collection of Orwell's essays: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/index.html http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/in... When I first read 'Politics and the English Language', I was pleased to see the similaities between pg's essays and Orwell's thoughts about language, metaphors and good writing.

Alex3917 18y ago

Modern politics consists of framing, soundbites, talking points, context shifting, and statistics. The political essay died along with Orwell's elephant.

danw 18y ago

Orwell's diary is being republished in blog form at http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/ http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/

13ren 18y ago

I read this a decade ago, and tried to practice it. The only problem is that people pay less attention because you don't sound as impressive... OTOH maybe I can recommend it: using this approach, I did win a prize for an essay-based subject (non-computer science)... And there was another essay I wrote that one lecturer gave to another lecturer to read because it was so "stimulating". BTW: Orwell mentions "dead metaphors". There's a really cool rhetorical device called "reviving a dead metaphor". A simple way to do this is to take mixed (dead) metaphors and unmix them. The impact can be strikingly visceral. \EDIT {it's all coming back to me now... when I used metaphors in this way, they became true isomorphisms, revealing a much deeper and more informative - and even predictive - correspondence. For an example, note that the desktop metaphor is itself a dead metaphor that is also an isomorphism.} Finally: Orwell did not do well romantically. It makes one think twice about emulating him. I try to remember this test before following advice :-)

astrec 18y ago
The only problem is that people pay less attention because you don't sound as impressive... But as the brothers Heath show us in "Made to Stick", nobody will recall what you actually said.

jsmcgd 18y ago

For me this is the best article I have read on Hacker News in a while. More of this please! ps I got a perverse enjoyment from being scolded from beyond the grave. pps I think that's my first ironic pun

MaysonL 18y ago

I love the way he roasts the dying metaphors, spicing their remains with his own novel images: ...like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. ...phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house. ...gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else... ...an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea-leaves blocking a sink. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow,... ...give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.