Politics and the English Language

What I like about Orwell is that he is uncompromising. His fiction, such as Animal Farm and 1984, is very well known, but some of his essays have been just as influential.

This is probably the most important one, in which Orwell makes a case for clarity and concision as the guiding principles of communication. Language is both cause and effect of meaning: it "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier to have foolish thoughts."

Good writing, Orwell suggests, helps us retain freshness of thought; bad writing, conversely,… show more.

No author, not even Shakespeare, has influenced me as much as George Orwell.

As an enemy of communism, fascism, and imperialism, Orwell wrote novels, nonfiction books, and essays in support of democratic values, including the responsible use of language. In "Politics and the English Language", written just after World War II, Orwell traces the relationship between language abuse and political abuse. 

After revealing examples of abuse, such as the use of euphemisms to veil evil practices and policies, Orwell offers handy bits of advice for writers, such as never using an image that you are used to seeing in print.… show more.

A little essay, not a book. It can be found in many collections of Orwell’s work, and it has been my lodestar over many years of writing about politics. At first, it appears to be about politicians and the way they manipulate language to hide their intentions, often with disastrous results. But Orwell is actually addressing those of us who write about politics. Will we allow ourselves to become instruments of propaganda? I re-read this essay yearly—a sort of mental booster vaccine.