George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” reflects on the modern-day English language written and spoken by the newer generation. Orwell’s idea centers on how English has changed from the past to become casual without any effort. Therefore, for that reason, it becomes easier to manipulate others as it is the effect of “political and economic causes”. Orwell explains how modern-day politics is highly criticized for this. He mentions because of desensitized political language, it affects writing and speaking to become more “flowly” to seem more “professional”. Along with that, there is the overuse of phrases with no deep meaning giving no original idea. Overall with the two combined, Orwell brings about how it negatively affects intelligence and creative language.
“Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness…The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.” These two lines in Orwell’s essay has great significance. For one it brings the main idea of the essay together. Politicians using overly complicated words as filler words to please an audience without offending anyone-is the language of insincerity. It’s a tactic used to trick the audience. This particularly stood out because it was eye-opening as a normal person wouldn’t have known this coming as a shocker. Orwell was direct so it made it easy to understand his point. Politicians and news outlets tend to replace certain words, displeasing words, with polite and necessary words become more favorable to engage empathy-manipulation.
Out of the few examples Orwell provides of categorized language “Pretentious Diction” stood out. Today it is very common to see pretentious diction, especially in essay writing. It has become a habit of many growing up to show sophisticated wording which is more complicated. Often times the word doesn’t fit/misused. I am guilty of this as it’s a habit from years of being told to use “bigger” words in writing assignments-look for replacements of simple words. Orwell himself says “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.” The most recent example I’ve personally seen was President Trump during the 2020 Presidential Debate. There was excessive use of overly complicated word choice when simpler terms could have been used. It was interesting to see how Orwell’s idea corresponded with that particular political event.
— Orwell wrote this in 1946, so he is not describing our 21st century reality – though much of his essay continues to be relevant today.
–Why would politicians want to use euphemisms? Can you think of an example of a euphemism you’ve heard in politics? Similarly, why be “deliberately vague”? What goal does that serve?