Politics and the English Language

George Orwell’s essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946) is a critique of the conventions of written English in the modernist and post-World War II era, focusing specifically on the correlation between political correctness and intellectual and linguistic poverty. Orwell lambasts people who use language as a tool to obfuscate, rather than convey, truth, arguing that language, though political, should never be weaponized with the intent to exploit vulnerable readers. Moreover, he remarks that such a use of language masks truth even from the one who thinks of and deploys it. The essay is well known for being an unusually literal and didactic departure from Orwell’s usual subject matter, which employs extended metaphors that refer to economic and class issues. The essay appears in the essay collection, Why I Write. Read further analysis of "Politics and the English Language" in the SuperSummary Study Guide for Why I Write.

Orwell relates what he sees as a direct correlation between bad writing and oppressive thought. He characterizes virtually all contemporary political speech and political prose as written to defend, minimize, or obfuscate atrocities and blatant inequities occurring in society. He gives the examples of continued British colonization of India on both political and ideological lines, as well as Russian deportations of Jews and dissenting figures, and the United States’ decision to decimate Hiroshima with an atom bomb. Though these actions, like any action, can be defended, the arguments that they necessitate require language that is too harsh for public consumption and conflicts with the professed aims of the political parties who wish to advocate for them. As a result, political language now relies mainly on minimizing language to euphemisms and deliberate vagueness. For example, the violent seizure of an enemy town might be termed “pacification,” while driving citizens from their homelands in mass deportations might be called a “transfer of population.” Orwell traces this linguistic phenomenon to the fact that vague language prevents one’s audience from coming to immediate terms with the often-violent realities that are its referents.

Next, Orwell posits that insincerity is inimical to clarity of thought and language. Whenever there is a lacuna between a writer or speaker’s real and stated goals, the writer resorts to overly complex or grandiose language and overused idioms. He employs the simile of a cuttlefish spurting out ink to elude its foe. When writers, the supposed champions and representatives of their audience’s conception of language’s abilities and ends, disguise their points in strange diction, they perpetuate the ideologies of doublethink and euphemism. This kicks off a vicious cycle where language perpetually declines as language users resort to simpler and simpler words and phrasings. He compares this to the pathology of the alcoholic, who usually begins drinking excessively because he already feels like a failure. As he continues to drink, he ensures his failure, instigating his own fulfillment of this destructive attribution.

Orwell points out two more devices that insincere writers use. One is pretentious diction; that is, the use of overly complex or academic words to express biased viewpoints as if they were scientific and unbiased. The other is meaningless diction, the substitution of filler words where real arguments should be to exhaust the reader’s attention before reaching the crux of an argument. He states that these habits spread mainly by imitation, creating a kind of linguistic virus that propagates through various media. He argues that it behooves writers to help their audience think more clearly by themselves thinking more clearly and producing lucid writing that matches the content of their imaginations.

Orwell concludes with a list of six rules that form a simple and finite axiomatic program to generate compelling and lucid writing. He poses the list as a remedy to the constant temptation to deploy meaningless diction, which always threatens to arrest and stifle the intellectual potential of the writer. The first rule is to never use a simile, metaphor, or any other figure of speech that one has already seen frequently used in other texts. He calls these “dying metaphors,” asserting that they are generally used when a writer doesn’t actually know what he or she means. Additionally, because of their vagueness and overuse, they are highly susceptible to manipulation in meaning. The second rule is to never use a longer word when a short word suffices as a unit of meaning. The third is to remove excess words that do not advance the argument or image under consideration. The fourth is to avoid passive voice. The fifth is to avoid using foreign, scientific, or overly dialectical words when there is an ordinary equivalent in a given language. The sixth and final rule is Orwell’s exhortation to willingly break these rules if it prevents one from saying something “barbarous.” Orwell ends his essay on a slightly optimistic note, arguing that the decline of the English language is reversible, and can be enacted by following rules such as the ones he has laid out.