Orwell Had It Right

I was going through the archives of my blog and found this post which never quite made it to publication, so I thought I'd share it now. I don't think I ever really finished it, but here it is in it's unfinished glory.

Perhaps in the future I'll post more "Snapshots Classics."

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April 4, 2007 1:32 AM

My Modern British Literature teacher assigned us to read George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" which is somewhat about politics and very much about English. He talks about the degradation of the English language, and how people don't speak in concrete language any longer. Instead of opting for tangible imagery and simple language, we use conceptual descriptions and big Latin and Greek based words which have little meaning to the average reader. He says a lot of other things too, but I haven't actually finished reading the essay.

Whatever the case, I think he got it right. Today especially, we self-edit, or perhaps more accurately, self-censor. There is a fear of offending people that stops us from saying what we really mean. We speak in euphemisms when we say things that might offend. That is not a bad thing necessarily, but sometimes situations call for frank and honest language. The thing is, we've gotten so used to softening language that we (or maybe just I) find it hard to write concrete thoughts. I'm not used to doing it.

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I'm seeing this phenomenon more clearly as I teach, especially when the time comes to critique performances. It takes a long time to say what I want to say because I'm very careful not to say something which might offend them or hurt their feelings. Although good in certain situations, my hesitance to speak with complete honesty means the person on the receiving end misses something potentially important. Today, for example, a group got on stage and presented a scene which they had obviously not rehearsed enough (or possibly at all). I tore into them. Frankly, they deserved it, and I thought, why should I try to be delicate when they obviously didn't care enough to put any kind of effort in to begin with?

Anyway, it seems like I can never escape work. Half the point of this post was to talk about something not teaching related, yet here I am once again complaining about my students. Oh, how I anticipate the day when I'm done with this phase and I can think about something else!