George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”

Honestly, I liked this paper if only because it shares a lot of characteristics with some of my rough drafts and finished papers. The greatest similarity I noticed was the way he jumps from quoted material to ideas that didn’t need the quoted material to ideas that did need the quoted material. On page 2, he gives us five blocks of quoted text from other papers. He then doesn’t reference them between pages 3 through 6, until the very end of page 7 – roughly, the space between the quoted material and his arguments for why the quoted material uses language in a faulty manner is six pages apart.

While he does point this out, he also uses his language in the very same way he protests against. While he doesn’t use tired metaphors (unless some of the metaphors I came across and was confused by were “tired metaphors” when he wrote this), he does use long, lengthy phrases here and there that could be further shortened (“the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness” on page 11 for, perhaps, “cutting out meaningless words and phrases”). He does point out many ideas that I agree with, though. While I still think it’s easier to write simple, quick phrases (“I think”) than long, over-the-top ones that mean the same thing, it is easier for me to use such long phrases when I have to write a longer paper in a rush, for example.

From this paper, I've learned a few things. While some can use quotes the way Orwell did in this paper, others can't (when I quote material, I have to immediately give my thoughts on it). When listening to an overblown speech or reading an exceedingly long paper, one can find out when the author forgot to think his or her words through or might be flat-out lying: whether there are clashing metaphors, large words are thrown in (especially one after the other), or does something else that confuses audiences.  The next time I write a paper, I'd better be sure of two things: I don't use clichéd phrases and my ideas come through clearly.  Page 8 gives me six questions and page 12 gives me six rules that I can use.  If nothing else, at least I can learn these things.

Idida Z. Casado