In the essay written by George Orwell, he criticized contemporary writers for their lack of creativity and “staleness of imagery” (Orwell, George. Politics and the English Language, 1946) and linked them with the decline of the English language. He also mentioned that the decay of the English language was directly connected to the inhumane ideology.
In the essay, “Politics and the English Language”, Orwell cited five contemporary examples of bad writing and criticized them for their lack of precision and staleness of imagery. Orwell also condemned using stale metaphor, operational or verbal false limbs, pretentious diction and meaningless words. Orwell also considered stale writing to be “bad writing”, stale in this case meaning overused, to be one of the major ailments with the English language. By using “dying metaphors”, as he put it, (i.e. best of the best, avoid…like the plague, only time will tell, an axe to grind) you become the enemy of clear colorful writing. Operator or verbal false limbs eliminate the need to pick out appropriate verbs or nouns but adding an extra syllable to create the illusion of symmetry. These are completely unneeded. Pretentious Diction has absolutely no place in good writing unless it is meant to be humorous or ironic. Still, any diction may be the right diction for a certain occasion: The choice of words depends on a writer's purpose and audience. The use of meaningless words, such as plastic and romantic is usually frowned upon
In Orwell’s essay, he asked the readers to connect the dots between the dying English language and political manipulation. Specifically, we are asked to consider whether "ugly" language contributes to muddy or "foolish" thinking. Orwell believes it does, although the process is anything but simple and sometimes rather confusing to understand. Political and economic pressures produce ugly language, which then produces foolish thinking, also foolish thinking produces even uglier language. This was not a...