Unit 1: Politics and the English Language

Satire

The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, usually wiht a view of correcting it.

Four categories Orwell divides the mot common weaknesses in prose

• Dying metaphors

• Operators, or verbal falso limbs

• Pretentious diction

• Meaningless words

Dying metaphors

Phrases that used to be power but have lost thier meaning over time because they are too much.

example of dying metaphor

“tip of an iceberg”

Operators

These are extra words that people use to make their sentences sound fancier, but they often just make things more complicated.

Prententious Diction

This means using big fancy words when simpler ones would do just fine.

example of operators

Instead of saying “i will help you” some might say “i will provide assistance to you“

example of a pretentious diction

instead of saying “help“, some might say “facilitate“

Meaningless words

Words that dont add any real value to a sentence.

examples of meaningless words

saying “she is very nice” could be better as “she is nice“

Six rules Orwell offers to improve writing

• never use a metaphor, similie or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

• Never use the passive where you can use the active.

• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.