George Orwell Politics And The English Language Summary

English is a language that is constantly evolving. From Shakespearian time and its use of thou to modern day where everything is “lit” it is clear there have been several major changes, but is his article “Politics and the English Language” George Orwell argues that these changes are for the worse. He reveals that the English language has fallen from where it once was. Modern English is cluttered with outdated, meaningless phrases and fail to ever be concrete or make a definite point. Orwell sees these faults and hopes to repair the failures in the system by giving his readers two sets of rules to follow, however he constantly breaks his own rules throughout his entire article. By breaking his own rules, Orwell makes clear to the reader the

11). This one rule that while it isn’t ever completely obvious, he is constantly going over the same points in his article. He returns to the same points that English is falling from where it once was, writing today consists of putting together the same worn out phrases, there needs to be something done to fix this. There is the first point of Orwell breaking one of his bigger rules, but then there is the great irony of his sixth rule giver in paragraph 18 that a writer should “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.” (par. 18). This is the big ironic statement of his entire article because it isn’t possible. Even after giving all these rules to follow, questions to ask when writing, and other points of advice, Orwell says that it’s okay to break these rules to sound civilized. That is the fault and point of Orwell’s article because it is necessary to change the way people are writing in hopes of improving our culture and language, but the only way to sound civilized is to break these rules and fall in with the failing way the language is now. This is the irony in the rule, so should one follow Orwell’s rules and change our culture for the better or should a writer stay where it is safe changing nothing or making it worse. Either way the writer would be following Orwell’s advice, either rule six or the rest of the rules and