Orwell on the English Language
Feb. 8th, 2008 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liveonearthAs you may know, I write a lot. Can't help it, just spews out of my fingertips onto the keyboard. On this blog I write informally, I use slang, I don't worry too much about rules. I write stuff that I don't even believe, just to try out different points of view. But I find that I agree and for the most part already implement George Orwell's rules. This link goes to his still-apropos 1946 essay.
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. (Hemingway was the master)
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (My personal favorite)
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. (Hemingway was the master)
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (My personal favorite)
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.
