By CARA ANNA
Associated Press
See: George Orwell, “Politics and the
English Language”
From which I provide excerpts here for
your convenience:
A man may take to drink because he
feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely
because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to
the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our
thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it
easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
In our time, political speech and
writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the
continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and
deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be
defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people
to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political
parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism,
question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.
But if thought corrupts language,
language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by
tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know
better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some
ways very convenient.
Political language — and with
variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives
to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
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