June 20, 2002
ESCHEW OBFUSCATION :
George Orwell is looking at you (Richard Lederer, June 20, 2002, Jewish World Review)Over Fifty years ago, George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" was first published in The New Republic. Since then the article has become the most widely reprinted essay in our language. [...]For a set of rules for plain talk and clear writing, it would be difficult to better these six offered in "Politics and the English Language." If we all followed these guidelines, our prose might not be as good as Orwell's, but it would certainly be to the point:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
It seems like we might lose some of the beauty and history of our language if we followed these rules too closely--metaphors, jargon, etc. can serve useful purposes and can reference earlier speech and writings in ways that it would be a shame to forsake. But the general rule, that we should seek to communicate what we mean as clearly as we possibly can, especially in the political arena, is one we should always bear in mind. It's worth considering whether the very difficulty that George W. Bush has in speaking may actually work to his favor with the common folk who think that they'd have trouble themselves and who resent elitist media types saying that it's a sign of stupidity.
UPDATE :
As per M Ali Choudhury, here's a link to our Orwell Page, with more links than you can shake a stick at.