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Politics and the English Language



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Sun Sep 24, 2006 10:26 pm
Snoink says...



I don't know... when I first read this essay, I fell in love with it. True, it's about politics, but it deals with how politics has manipulated the English language into something twisted and horrible. Instead of writing to be understood, English has turned into something twisted and foul, intent on making secrets and keeping them. And he looks at it and it's so wonderful.

Read this carefully and apply it to your stories. It's great stuff...

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/ ... art42.html
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:09 pm
Poor Imp says...



Orwell here is bit of Anglophile as far as language goes, caught in a communist scare, isn't he? ^_~


Some very interesting thoughts there though. Bad education, inept thought...all lead to inprecise language.
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:15 pm
Snoink says...



Or the reverse. ;)
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D
  





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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:19 pm
Poor Imp says...



Snoink wrote:Or the reverse. ;)


That's the reverse of my first sentence, or second/third? :P
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:21 pm
Snoink says...



Last sentence, hehe.
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D
  





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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:22 pm
Poor Imp says...



Inept and imprecise. Oy. ^_^''
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:35 pm
Bjorn says...



Haha, I stopped half-way. Basically what this guy is saying is that the English language (or any language for that sake) must be lodged. That it shouldn't evolve. Oh evolve it must, but Orwell, it seems, wants to shut off most of the valves by which a language evolves. Get over it people! What we are speaking today, within a century, or millenia, shall be different to what people then are speaking! Modern English is soo much different from Anglo-Saxon, a large part due to the borrowing of words from other languages, notably Latin and Greek. Sheesh...
Killing For Peace Is Like F#@%ing For Chastity
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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:40 pm
Poor Imp says...



Bjorn wrote:Haha, I stopped half-way. Basically what this guy is saying is that the English language (or any language for that sake) must be lodged. That it shouldn't evolve. Oh evolve it must, but Orwell, it seems, wants to shut off most of the valves by which a language evolves. Get over it people! What we are speaking today, within a century, or millenia, shall be different to what people then are speaking! Modern English is soo much different from Anglo-Saxon, a large part due to the borrowing of words from other languages, notably Latin and Greek. Sheesh...


I think he's rather unconscious of his propensity towards wanting the language to remain stationary. He has a good point about neendless complication. But he's confused the two, perhaps - change and bewildered intricacy. !_!'' ...and he apparently isn't fond of foreign translation or outright borrowing.
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
-Lloyd Alexander
  





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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:44 pm
Snoink says...



Hehehe... I think he's trying to say how language should be clear and beautiful. ;)
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D
  





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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:47 pm
Poor Imp says...



Snoink wrote:Hehehe... I think he's trying to say how language should be clear and beautiful. ;)


About beauty? That I missed - he certainly wants it clear. ^_^
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
-Lloyd Alexander
  





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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:51 pm
Snoink says...



Heheh! With clarity comes beauty. ;)

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from ECCLESIASTES:

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth

Here it is in modern English:

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D
  





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Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:55 pm
Poor Imp says...



True there - he gives an example, one beautiful, the other a headache (to be kind).^_^ But he seems to react to confused complexity, and dismiss (to some extent) a depth which can be clear just as it is difficult.

It may also be my experience with his writing. He tends to be more utilitarian in diction than poetic or 'beautiful'.
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
-Lloyd Alexander
  





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Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:01 am
Snoink says...



But he never really liked his writing style! He thought it was too clunky. He always considered himself to be more of a poet, and when his poetry wasn't well received, he wasn't happy at all about it.
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D
  





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Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:03 am
Poor Imp says...



Snoink wrote:But he never really liked his writing style! He thought it was too clunky. He always considered himself to be more of a poet, and when his poetry wasn't well received, he wasn't happy at all about it.



Ah - well that's something I didn't know about him. He was an inadvertant word-utilitarian, then? Perhaps his bitterness comes out a bit in the essay...

(Do you know, by any chance, where I could read his poetry? 'Net site?)
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem

"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
-Lloyd Alexander
  





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Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:07 am
Snoink says...



http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays.htm#Poems

Haha... George Orwell was just a pen name. His real name is Eric Blair. :)
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D
  








The important thing is never to stop questioning.
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