George Orwell

George Orwell begins his argument with the idea that all of the bad habits in the English language start with foolish thoughts. He explains that the effectiveness of one’s writing has to do with the clarity of one’s thoughts. I believe that he pretty much covers everything prevalent at the time he was writing this criticism of the English language. He really goes in depth about how sloppy people get with something as simple as communicating. Human beings express themselves through words every single day, so one would think that every person in the world have mastered the skills of speaking and writing by now. I agree with his statement, “It is often easier to make up words of this kind than to think up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.” He is basically saying that the use of creative language and intellectual wordage of phrases is dead. The English language allows one to become extremely lazy, while still being able to get his/her point across. It’s a shame that people aren’t able to communicate to the best of their abilities solely because they refrain from taking risks, and stick to simple statements. If this article were to be published in this day and age, I think he would have an entire page about the upcoming and use of technology to enhance one’s writing abilities. There is nothing more frustrating to the use of slang or abbreviated words in because of technology and instant messaging. Technology can be a good thing but people rely on spellcheck to keep them from having a poorly constructed paper, and tell them when the sentence is a fragment.