George Orwell Vagueness

Orwell believes that the language which is vague or meaningless hides the truth rather than express it. Orwell encourages concreteness and clarity instead of vagueness, and individuality over political conformity. Moreover Orwell argues on the fact that the English language becomes “ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”He argues that these result from bad writing habits which are spread by imitation, and that writers need to rid themselves of these habits by thinking more carefully about the words they use and their meaning. Orwell notices that modern prose lack concreteness. Instead, writers use assembles of hackneyed clichés, phrases in

This is because the language of politics is engaged in maintaining orthodoxy and defending actions on the part of governments, which are often indefensible. Euphemisms are more mild words substituted for other words that are considered to be too harsh. Orwell asserts that these are commonplace in political speech. He offers some examples: the destruction of villages is called 'pacification', the forced eviction of peasants is 'transfer of population', and the unlawful imprisonment and execution of political dissidents is 'elimination of unreliable elements'. In short, Orwell asserts that when the real goals of a political body differ from the stated goals of the party, language is used to mask the difference and mislead the populace. An important feature of Orwell's argument is that, once this soft, hazy language is adopted by the population, the ability to fully comprehend the actions of governments is lessened, and through this process the population can be tricked and resistance