Katy Kahla - Politics and the English Language

People using the English language are lazy. This is what George Orwell is telling us in Politics and the English Language. Orwell feels that people no longer want to express exactly how they feel about a topic so everyone understands and instead have fallen into the norm of saying everything but saying nothing at all. People are over using metaphors, similes, complex wordings, foreign phrases, scientific words, jargon, long words, and other in order to make themselves seem more credible. To make themselves seem like they are saying so much with their writing but in reality they are just confusing everyone who is reading their work. All of this leads to writers and orators becoming lazy within such a powerful language. Words have the power to start wars and build nations and instead of using it to its full extent to create new ways to write and speak, society has fallen into using broad terms and irrelevant material because it is easy. All of these ideas that Orwell says, I have seen.

Everyday I have seen someone use one of Orwell fallacies. This was especially true during the last presidential election. My government class was asked to watch debates from state representatives to national representatives, and one thing every person noticed was that the farther up a politician aspired, the more obscure their answers to questions. Instead of just answering the question flat out with no round abouts, the national representative candidates would answer everything in circles. They did this so they would gain the most vote base because if they never really answered the question, who could disagree with them? But this idea of everyone agreeing because they don't know what to disagree with, just left the audience confused and unwilling to support the ideas of the person persuading them.

The ideas Orwell presents will be very helpful to our argument or really any paper that we write. Instead of trying to fill our paper with fluff so we can meet a page requirement, we should be concise about what we wish to say. This may seem like it will take up less room in the paper, but if we know what we want to say in a precise manner, it allows for better discussion and analysis of our ideas. It also encourages us to talk with meaning and not use premade ideas that have become the “norm” of society. We should return to just say “I think” instead of “In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable…” even though it is not as poetic and sophisticated because no matter what, everyone will know exactly what you think with no guess work.