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. —George Orwell

Society and the English language are in a bad spot, writes Orwell in his essay Politics & The English Language.

While the essay was published in 1946, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that not much has changed since then in the realm of language and politics.

Much like the culture of eighty years ago, the language of politicians is filled with vague, insincere, meaningless, and pretentious language, and the discourse surrounding our culture seems increasingly lazy and lacks precision.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We forget that society and the English language are conscious processes meant to suit our desires. By pulling on the lever of language—that is, by cleaning it up—we can begin to push society in a healthy direction.

Note that cleaning up our language has little to do with correct grammar, syntax, or having what’s called a ‘good prose style’ and much more to do with making one’s meaning clearer, ridding ourselves of phrases that do the thinking for us, and letting the meaning choose the word and not the other way around.

Orwell points to four common problems with modern English prose that obstruct our communication:

1) Dying metaphors

A dying metaphor is a stale metaphor that has lost its power; used to save people the trouble of inventing new imagery.

ex. “stand shoulder to shoulder”, “time is running out”, “brand new”, “deadline”

While a useful metaphor is meant to assist thought by evoking a visual image, a dying metaphor produces almost no imagery.

2) Operators (aka verbal false limbs)

An operator is when a verb becomes a phrase.

Ex. render inoperative (instead of “stop”), have the effect of (instead of “causes”), prove unacceptable (“we disagreed”), make contact with (“we talked”), be subject to (“we’ll sue you”)

Operators eliminate simple verbs. They save trouble instead of forcing the writer to pick out appropriate nouns and verbs, and pad sentences with extra syllables to give the appearance of symmetry.

3) Pretentious diction

Pretentious diction is words that dress up simple statements to give an air of culture, elegance, or scientific impartiality to biased judgments.

Ex. phenomenon, element, individual (as a noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate

Orwell recommends never using a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

4) Meaningless words

Meaningless words are jargon words.

ex. [as used in art criticism]: romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality

These words do not point to any discoverable object.

Meaningless words are also used in variable meanings, and in most cases, dishonestly:

ex. class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Orwell on the topic of meaningless words:

Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’ The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.

In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.

Basically, if you see a speaker turning to long words, exhausted idioms, or any word that requires a definition, seek clarity and beware of hidden intentions, a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims.

How to identify lazy language:

In each case, there’s a general lack of precision, thoughtfulness, and vagueness in this kind of language.

There is no single fresh, arresting phrase.

There’s a general emotional meaning—people dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another—but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying.

Orwell describes this form of NPC dialogue taking place:

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases—bestial atrocities, iron heel, blood-stained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder—one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them.

And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.

So, how do we fix these problems? How do we clean up our use of the English language to create more transparent and meaningful conversations?

We start with ourselves and with our own language. Specifically, we ask ourselves these few important questions.

Questions of a scrupulous writer:

1) What am I trying to say?

2) What words will express it?

3) What image or idiom will make it clearer?

4) Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

5) Could I put it more shortly?

6) Have I said anything unavoidably ugly?

It’s a short and simple list, but by filtering our language through these few simple questions, we’ll find growth, understanding, and an improved connection to all things.

May we use language as an instrument not for concealing but for expressing and revealing thought.

If we are ever to improve society and politics, our language is the foundation for change.