Alana Gribble
History 261
January, 9 2015
Essay 1
Politics and the English Language In George Orwell’s argument, “Politics and the English Language,” He discusses his belief that modern day english is on a downward spiral and it is full of bad habits which spread by imitation. He states that writers and speakers use dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and meaningless words. For the rest of his argument, he goes on to show examples of how speakers and writers are doing these things and how it can be fixed. Orwell claims that many speakers and writers use dying metaphors which are cliché and have lost any original meaning. He says that writers do not want to come up with their own metaphors, so they use old ones that don’t always make sense in their writings. He also describes that writers use verbal false limbs, meaning they take simple verbs and make them too complex. He goes on to explain that he believes writers and speakers use pretentious diction by using latin or greek words instead of English words too make themselves sound more scientific or educated. He also believes that speakers and writers use too many meaningless words, meaning they don;t get to the point quick enough and get off of topic. He states that all of these bad habits in the English language can cause major problems in politics because if politicians do these things, their speeches could have hidden meanings and the people would not fully understand what the politician is