George Orwell's Politics And The English Language

George Orwell is very straightforward with his analysis of the English language in "Politics and the English Language." Immediately, in the second paragraph, Orwell gives a very quick assessment on the topic. He says, "[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" (Orwell, para. 2). He believes that the language has bad habits, like slang words or run-on sentences, that are imitated over and over again. Orwell states that if we get rid of these our thoughts will be more clear, the first step to political regeneration. To go further, Orwell includes five passages written by other authors. His point by adding these is to show these habits are contagious and

He felt by doing this they were hiding or trying to hide something since they had "staleness of imagery" and "lack of precision" (Orwell, para. 9).

Orwell then begins talking about his own terms like "dying metaphors," "verbal false limbs," and "pretentious diction." He says that dying metaphors, like the phrases "fishing in troubled waters" or "Achilles' heel," are old and no longer hold power in the English language. He feels these phrases are still used because it saves them from having to come up with their own metaphors even if they don't know what the phrase means, such as "grist to the mill." If a person uses a dying metaphor they don't understand and incorrectly use the phrase, Orwell feels that this shows that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. This lack of interest in our own language is seen as a problem by Orwell. His "verbal false limbs" include phrases like "give rise to" or "serve the purpose of." He says these phrases eliminate regular verbs like "stop" or "kill" so instead of