Response to "Politics and the English Language"

My first thought to this reading was, "I never want this man to read any of my papers, I have the feeling he would slaughter my work." I think though that in a sense he is totally right about what is happening to the English language, except he was just a little over dramatic about how he went about it. I know for one all of the mistakes he pointed out in the five examples, I have committed all of those writing "crimes" at least once, or more than likely a bunch of times.

Today it's just so easy to become lazy with our speech and writing, and to be honest they way that we as a society write today just seems so much easier to read. I will admit that it is annoying when people incorrectly use words or phrase in their writing (one of the few things I completely agree with Orwell on), people try and make what their writing sound "smarter" by trying to use five-dollar words or fancy phrases but they use it incorrectly. If you don't know what the word or phrase you are using means that don't use it, or you end up making yourself look silly and pompous for not really knowing what you're talking about, we talked about this in class as "artificial smartness."

I like how Orwell said (the English language), "It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is the process is reversible" (Orwell, 52). I agree that there are many things happening to the English language and our society writing abilities today, but I only agree that a few things should be changed, I don't believe our language is doomed (as Orwell might). I think all that really needs to happen is that people need to be more cautious about what they are writing about and how they are writing, if people weren't as lazy when it came to writing I think many issues with our writing and language as a whole could change for the better.

I didn't think this reading was a difficult as I thought it was going to be, Orwell made a few really good points and I liked the idea behind what is happening to our language today. I think Orwell was a little dramatic about it and kind of came off as a know-it-all but in general he made a good argument.