Orwell’s thesis speaks of how he believes the English language has been broken up by people which now appears inaccurate/ugly. Orwell then puts the blame on economics and politics for breaking up English language but he later states how “language is a natural growth” coming to a conclusion that this broken English can be repaired.
“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” the meaning of this quotation is how a man drinks because he believes he is a failure but in fact he is not but the action of him drinking and being drunk actually makes him fail more. This stood out to me because it is quite true. I assume he is trying to say that you have the choice, For example you have the choice to actually feel like a failure and do good but sometimes a person might accept the feeling of being a failure and want to forget it. Instead of putting in the effort to confront your feeling of failure you choose the easy way out. So basically many people ignore the choice of actually writing good and take the choice of writing “ugly” because it is easier .
“Dying Metaphors”, yes I do see examples of this today. In fact it is my own writing that uses overused metaphors. Sometimes I find myself saying used metaphors to get to the point instead of continuing to write, which comes from laziness, which is a point he brought up. We, or maybe just I, I seem to find the easy way out but sometimes you just have to express yourself instead of breaking English more that it already is. I definitely find this critique valid because I am guilty of it, this is one of my wrongdoings and he pointed it out without even reading my writing which leads me to believe that it is valid.
Language use and politics intersect for me today because in order for me to advocate for something I need to speak and use English language that supports what I advocate for. Use of language that has been subjected for debate or misunderstanding is “blue lives matter”… that has been debated about and misunderstood. I am still confused about it because how does that even make sense, that use of language is just ugly because it doesn’t seem to make sense. A person is not blue, unless they are avatar and the way it is being used to defend the police is just weird.
— The drinking example is not about human behavior. He is using this as an analogy to say something about how language and behavior interact. It isn’t just the case that our words reflect our beliefs, but rather that our words can actually SHAPE our beliefs.
–Can you think of an example of what Orwell refers to as a “dying metaphor”?
–As you point out, we can’t understand “blue lives matter” literally. The only way to make sense of this line is to position it in dialogue with “Black lives matter.” Once we do that, we see that it is shorthand for a much larger, more complex position.