Politics and the English Language

By George Orwell

Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Reference

George Orwell's 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, issued here as a short Penguin volume, argues that muddy prose and muddy politics feed each other. Orwell shows how stale metaphors, empty abstractions and pretentious diction hide meaning and make political lies easier to swallow. He closes with six plain rules meant to keep ordinary writing concrete, short and honest.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “What I give almost everybody who works for me is a copy of George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, which is a wonderful essay on language and politics and how to write about politics.”