George Orwell: politics and the English Language

K S Sivakumaran

Serious students of English, particularly the undergraduates might have read George Orwell’s classic essay on the then misuse of the English language. If those pre-university students have not read it already, I suggest they do it now. Even adults among the public can refresh their memories in trying to write English precisely.

My purpose here is to re-introduce Orwell’s essay and sketch a note on him. The internet will have lot of material on him and his novels. Please gather information as much as possible from these sources.

George Orwell’s real name was Eric Blair. Though an Englishman and a son of British Civil Servant, he did not like the British imperialism of the early 20th century. Nor did he like the dictatorship of Josef Stalin and others in the then Soviet Union. He therefore decided to write fiction under his pseudonym satirizing the political setups then. Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four were the two classics of satirical writing by him. The latter work came as a film that you may like to watch.

Educated at Eton, the then prestigious educational centre, he wanted to be an English teacher in France and noticed that English was not used to communicate effectively in his own country as well. It lacked clarity. When there were simple forms of language people were using longer words and long sentences thus complicating easy communication. There was confusion in grammar too. Even now we face such misuse of language. Orwell found hackneyed metaphors or rather overused expressions were used haphazardly thus being not functional.

Even phrases like render inoperative, make itself felt, exhibit a tendency were used when effective verbs could have been used he points out.

Pretentious writing reveals absence of clear thinking. When there are words in English to convey the meaning clearly some use foreign words to impress the readers that they are erudite and knowledgeable. This pompous writing is deplored by Orwell. Orwell who also says that phrases like “explore every avenue: and: leave no stone unturned” went out of common usage because of the jeer of journalists.

George Orwell

Even in Lanka lot of people prefer to write in passive voice when active voice would be effective. Long winded sentences and mixed up clauses and absence of finite verbs can be detected from the writing of those who prefer to write in passive voice. And many students are not sure of a word like 'coming' when used in a phrase. They think just because the word comes there it is a verb, but it is not. It is a gerund. Most phrases could be replaced with simple words. Orwell points out this shortcoming.

Pretentious writing reveals absence of clear thinking. When there are words in English to convey the meaning clearly some use foreign words to impress the readers that they are erudite and knowledgeable. This pompous writing is deplored by Orwell.

Orwell who also says that phrases like “explore every avenue: and: leave no stone unturned” went out of common usage because of the jeer of journalists.

We journalists also should be blamed for careless use if language out of laziness. We must also remember that even Orwell has made some mistakes in using the language effectively judging by the present standards of acceptable good writing. Another observation of Orwell was that politicians and diplomats use language purposely and in such a way to deceive the public.

The decadence of the English language in the 1940s was due to political and economic reasons he says. At the same time most of his observations are applicable even to this day. The electronic and print media are in a hurry to bring news and other features that they are lazy to put what they want to say in clear terms by only using hackneyed or meaningless words to communicate.

After Orwell there are many educationists in both sides of the Atlantic have written books on how to write effectively. Last week we mentioned the book On Writing Well.

Of course like many other things language too changes as the necessity arises. Even the British English has changed. American English is spreading all over the world. To accommodate such uses in different parts of the world, now they call ‘varieties of English.’

In Lanka the present generation uses English language in its own way, but it must be clearly understood without clarity and written with a purpose English would be meaningless to be written or spoken.

We have to consider Prof Manique Gunasekera’s views on the subject of Lankan English. Prof. Thiru Kandiah and Prof Arjuna Parakrama can enlighten us where Lankan English stands today.

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