{"id":70,"date":"2014-01-02T18:57:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T18:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/2014\/01\/02\/politics-of-the-english-language\/"},"modified":"2022-06-28T10:44:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T14:44:58","slug":"politics-of-the-english-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/politics-of-the-english-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics of the English Language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Politics of the English Language, by George Orwell.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A must-read. There are strong lessons here for poets and speech-writers in equal measure. Unfortunately, what Charlotte, Ezequiel, and I recently concluded on the definition of poetry– that it is the economy of language– applies here to any form of writing at all. Just the way it should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.<\/li>
  2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.<\/li>
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.<\/li>
  4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.<\/li>
  5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.<\/li>
  6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n
    \n
    \"\"\/<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    If you haven’t seen Detachment by Tony Kaye, see it. One of the best moments of the film comes when Adrien Brody delivers a talk to the class on the continuing significance of George Orwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “How are you to imagine anything– if the images are always provided for you?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The ubiquitous assimilation described about images is the same for words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It is the risky task of invention to attempt to oppose that assimilation, to contribute something to the world around you instead of the other way around, and to put up a firewall to the numbing ideas promoted by those talking loudest. One battle at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"\/
    Adrien Brody as Henry Barthes, a teacher in an underserved school, in the movie Detachment by Tony Kaye, 2011. Screenshot taken from this YouTube video<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Appendix 2014.01.06:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    An article from Cracked perfectly highlighting the continuing significance of Orwell’s point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    http:\/\/www.cracked.com\/blog\/4-reasons-viral-content-stopped-mattering-in-2013\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Politics of the English Language, by George Orwell. A must-read. There are strong lessons here for poets and speech-writers in equal measure. Unfortunately, what Charlotte, Ezequiel, and I recently concluded on the definition of poetry– that it is the economy of language– applies here to any form of writing at all. Just the way it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,242],"tags":[206,207],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","category-non-fiction","tag-detachment","tag-orwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanhimanen.com\/crisesofdocumentation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}