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in the novel 1984 George Orwell touches on a lot of different ideas: surveillance

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censorship and for fans of the two-minute hate, participatory film [Orwell holds novel]

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viewing. feel good to yell doesn't it? but it's also about the relationship between

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politics and language. definitely wasn't the first time Orwell touched on these

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ideas. in 1946 he wrote the classic essay politics and the English language ,which

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is about well politics and the English language. in every book .okay but what's

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surprising is the extent to which writing can affect thinking. in the essay

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Orwell argues that sloppy writing promotes lazy thinking .for all of you

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out there with bad handwriting don't worry, Orwell's more concerned with

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writing that's riddled with cliches and demonstrates a lack of attention than

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stuff that looks like it was written in the back of a moving truck. but one of

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the ways in which language can fail us is a reliance on euphemisms, which can

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cloud meaning rather than make it clear. as Orwell puts it defenseless villages

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are bombarded from the air the inhabitants driven out into the [man frowns standing in front of village]

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countryside the cattle machine-gun the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets

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this is called pacification. and well by using a bloodless boring word like

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pacification, which sounds like a relaxing trip for a teething infant. we

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as readers don't have to imagine the horror of what's actually happening.

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which isn't a good thing if you want to understand what's really going on in the

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world. Orwell rightly pointed out that this use of language is no accident.

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often politicians or thinkers find themselves in a position where they must

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defend various kinds of atrocities, war torture. however rather than holding a

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press conference and saying we should keep doing all the horrible things we're [politician gives presentation]

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doing people tend to use a mix of euphemism and inflated style so their

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meaning becomes intentionally fog a steaming bowl of word soup like all

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those suboptimal results are never ultimately desirable for the party that

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pursues them. they are often and are currently necessary. now that that

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might kind of put an audience can sleep there as well.

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reading politics and the English language isn't just a great way to get

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wise to the trickery of political speech. it's also a great primer on stuff you

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can do to make your own writing clearer and sharper. like using the active voice

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cutting words when you can, and not using long words when short ones work just as

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well. well making such changes can have a big effect on your writing and the

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clearer your thinking and writing the easier it will be to avoid a real 1984.

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well sure those two minutes of hate might get your adrenaline going but it's

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really not worth the whole dystopia thing. [people raise arms]

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