George Orwell “Politics and the English Language” rough draft summary

Degradation. Degradation is the key word of “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell. Orwell explains how the language is degrading by showing the readers examples of bad writing. He goes on to list words causing this degradation and give an example of them in comparison with a verse from Ecclesiastes. Politicians use this confusing language, making people think that way, confused. This degradation can be reversed, and Orwell lists several rules to help do so.

George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” was originally published in the journal Horizon in 1948. It depicts the degradation of the English language and the political uses of that degradation. Orwell begins by showing five examples of poor English. All of these quotes had the main problem Orwell is writing against, which is, as Orwell puts it, “The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.” (paragraph 4). Several dying metaphors, pretentious words, and other things are listed as language to avoid (paragraphs 5, 6, 7, 8). Orwell compares a verse from Ecclesiastes and a modern English version of the verse (paragraph 9), thereby showing the readers the confusion and lack of imagery of today’s English. Orwell goes on to say, “… political writing is bad writing” (paragraph 12). The political agendas are clouded by complex language. The people may not understand the laws or the details that they get about war and after war situations. Orwell says, “… if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought” (paragraph 15), meaning that the people reading confused language will become confused. Everyone has the potential to commit these errors in language. But, this could be reversible with determination. Orwell shares six guidelines (paragraph 17) that can help the average political and non-political authors avoid unnecessarily complex writing. Orwell concludes by clarifying that this is not for “… the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought” (paragraph 19).

All quotes and paraphrases are from George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” and are listed by paragraph. To remove any confusion, there are 19 paragraphs total in his essay. All internal quotations are attributed to the previous paragraph.