Monday, October 09, 2006

Does Orwell follow his own advice in "A Hanging" and "Shooting an Elephant"?

Never use a metaphor, simile 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 autright barbarous.

Give an example!

What is wrong with the english language?

Seriously, people today cannot write. Why is it that everyone feels like it's so important to sound smart in their writing that the actual message they are trying to convey dissapears. Read this introduction to a literary analysis essay from a former student of mine:

"What shall people say when their destinies have been chosen by the unconscious mentality that runs rampid within their true desires; such a mentality that it instigates a cataclysmic risk of losing all self-control within the entity of such immorality. No one understands this immorality that is defined by the abstinence of thought, which recur people to believe and understand that such immorality only comes out of the acts that it has created. Such conjured acts that engulf the deepest cytoplasms of our memory and have people screening their very existence searching for that absolute truth that gives them direction in morality. Sadly the searching for absolute truth is found by few. The path to definitive righteousness through morality is small while the path leading to destruction is vast and its depths that suffocatingly drown all of our thoughts of intellectuality and discernment."

Here is another example from a college application essay:

"The hella overpriced food, and all of the tourist who have never been on a mountain in their life going down all of the challenging runs, running in to you breaking your leg and putting you out of the game for six freaking weeks."



Orwell is right on by attacking this destruction of language. Email, text messaging and TV is only making the situation worse.