Orwell and Language
In Chapter 8, while discussing the affect an increasing literacy has on language, Crystal references George Orwell and his rules of ‘good prose style.’ Although its not necessarily relevant to Middle English specifically, I found Orwell’s theory really interesting. He criticizes written English, saying that the language is declining because writers prefer abstract words and phrases to concrete ones. According to Orwell, the six ways to avoid using meaningless language are as follows:
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Thoughts or opinions?
kelly wrote:
Some of those rules — #1 through #3 especially — sound really similar to the Gricean Maxims of Conversation, which were Paul Grice’s set of rules that tried to describe the assumptions that listeners usually make about how speakers are talking. They sound particularly similar to the four Maxims of Manner (Clarity):
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief.
4. Be orderly.
It’s interesting that these are Grice’s ideas about how speakers usually do speak, rather than how they should speak, whereas Orwell’s rules of ‘good prose style’ are very clearly prescriptions for how to make writing clearer. Does it then follow that we have a natural tendency to make ourselves understood more easily when we are speaking than when we are writing?
Posted 19 Feb 2008 at 7:38 am ¶
Offenbarung Futhorc McGee wrote:
In response to kelly: perhaps writers are more likely to be overly concerned with sounding intelligent and conforming to a standard, and thus more likely to achieve this by using big, obscure words and complicated phrases. I imagine that these Maxims of Manner are often broken in conversation by people who are desperately trying to sound intelligent and educated.
Posted 21 Feb 2008 at 1:50 am ¶