Wow! This is a serious rant!
I was a little confused at first, but I soon understood what Orwell was trying to convey. I disagree with his paragraph on pretentious diction, because many of those words have a history behind them that creates an image when reading. They are words journalists use to seem more credible or to change the reader's mind. I almost bought his spiel until I read the sentence that he bashed the use of foreign phrases. Deus ex machina is a very important literary term! Translated literally, it means "god of the machine". That just does not have the same ring to it as DEUS EX MACHINA! I think that the author had a personal problem with these phrases simply because it was a time of war when he wrote it. Everyone was very patriotic in the mid-forties, and I think it was simply his love of his own country that made him think these foreign phrases had no use in the English language. What erks me the most is that after the break, he says that translating terms is no good either. I can't believe this guy! Did this bother anyone else?
Orwell makes an example by modernizing a passage from Ecclesiastes, and says that modern writing is progressively failing which seems to be the main point of the essay. He says "this kind of writing is not yet universal." I think that no type of writing will ever be universal because there are so many more people that can read and write now than there were when Ecclesiastes was written in 250 BCE.
Random side note: He uses the word "humbug" in his longest paragraph. I wanted to use it at the end of my first paragraph, but I decided it might make you think of A Christmas Carrol, not "nonsense".
I like the section on political writing because it is the truest ideas Orwell has in this essay. To bring someone to your side of thinking, you have to use the right words to appeal to their ideals. I cannot remember if we mentioned it in this class, but we spoke of how journalists uses specific words to create a certain view which can sway the reader to believe things that may or may not be true.
It's really cool how we can use our words.
4 comments:
I like how you touched on Orwell's fictitious modern day reworking of an older work. I am going to just come out and say that it was a gross embellishment of the truth of modern writing. While I am fairly sure that somewhere, somebody has indeed written something nearly or equally as bad as this fiction, it is not something the majority of educated people would produce. I take no issue with the bias in this text, but I also feel it is my duty to read it with a critical eye. I feel his point would have been better made by showing some actual writing in the fashion that he is crusading against, and then his own interpretation of those texts. Thus proving to everyone how poor writing can be with the trends he dislikes.
I was bothered as well with his blatant shun to foreign words. The English language itself is a mixture over time of different cultures and their affects on the English that we speak today (and even that continues to change). It's as if he's saying there is a proper English (Saxon) word for everything, but he doesn't go into too much detail about what those rules are, though certainly shunning things with Latin and Greek roots. I can understand the misuse that he's talking about with just using a big word for a big word's sake, but he comes across to me as pompous and illogical. He's really writing about political language, but I find it hard not to see his jabs poking more styles of English writing. As I said in my blog post, I don't see that much has changed in the last 60+ years -- if the political banter that we heard with the last election was any indication, we're no closer to being clear and accurate and even truthful in political writing in 2009.
I love that you bring up the foreign words that help shape our language, especially one that means so much to you in your literary history. However, I do not ever recall coming across it! Deus ex machina. It does have a very nice "ring" to it and I do not believe incorporating the translation in your writing would be anywhere near as effective. Orwell even mention words like "cul de sac" being improper. I did look up the translation of cul de sac and it said "dead end". To me this does not have the same meaning! A dead end can mean without end or no way out. A cul de sac is circular, not ending in a way but you are always capable of getting out of them!
I wasn't completely against Orwell when he was going against the use of foreign phrases.I think when they are used correctly they can fit well with a piece of writing, however if people just throw them in their writing to sound smarter then they obviously wont work. Another thing i agree with you about is how you dont think any type of writing will ever be universal. I think it is nearly impossible to do this since everyone has their own way of writing. Also many cultures have different ways of writing and it would be to hard to narrow them all down to make a universal way of writing.
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