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Politics and the English Language |
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The worst offenders
I list below, with notes and
examples, various of the tricks by means of
which the work of prose-construction is
habitually dodged.
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DYING
METAPHORS. A newly invented
metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual
image, while on the other hand a metaphor which
is technically ‘dead’ (e. g. iron resolution)
has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word
and can generally be used without loss of
vividness. But in between these two classes
there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which
have lost all evocative power and are merely
used because they save people the trouble of
inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are:
Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for,
toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand
shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands
of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing
in troubled waters, on the order of the day,
Achilles’ heel, swan song, hotbed. Many of
these are used without knowledge of their
meaning (what is a ‘rift’, for instance?), and
incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a
sure sign that the writer is not interested in
what he is saying. Some metaphors now current
have been twisted out of their original meaning
without those who use them even being aware of
the fact. For example, toe the line is
sometimes written as tow the line.
Another example is the hammer and the anvil,
now always used with the implication that the
anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is
always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never
the other way about: a writer who stopped to
think what he was saying would avoid perverting
the original phrase.
OPERATORS OR VERBAL FALSE LIMBS.
These save the trouble of picking out
appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same
time pad each sentence with extra syllables
which give it an appearance of symmetry.
Characteristic phrases are render
inoperative, militate against, make contact
with, be subjected to, give rise to, give
grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading
part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect,
exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of,
etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of
simple verbs. Instead of being a single word,
such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a
verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun
or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose
verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render.
In addition, the passive voice is wherever
possible used in preference to the active, and
noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by
examination of instead of by examining).
The range of verbs is further cut down by means
of the -ize and de- formations,
and the banal statements are given an appearance
of profundity by means of the not un-
formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions
are replaced by such phrases as with respect
to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of,
in view of, in the interests of, on the
hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences
are saved by anticlimax by such resounding
commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot
be left out of account, a development to be
expected in the near future, deserving of
serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory
conclusion, and so on and so forth.
PRETENTIOUS DICTION. Words like
phenomenon, element, individual (as noun),
objective, categorical, effective, virtual,
basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit,
exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are
used to dress up a simple statement and give an
air of scientific impartiality to biased
judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making,
epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant,
age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable,
are used to dignify the sordid process of
international politics, while writing that aims
at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic
colour, its characteristic words being:
realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident,
sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot,
clarion. Foreign words and expressions such
as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina,
mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung,
weltanschauung, are used to give an air of
culture and elegance. Except for the useful
abbreviations i. e., e. g. and etc.,
there is no real need for any of the hundreds of
foreign phrases now current in the English
language. Bad
writers, and especially scientific, political,
and sociological writers, are nearly always
haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words
are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary
words like expedite, ameliorate, predict,
extraneous, deracinated, clandestine,
subaqueous, and hundreds of others
constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon
numbers(1).
The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena,
hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these
gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard,
etc.) consists largely of words translated from
Russian, German, or French; but the normal way
of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek
root with the appropriate affix and, where
necessary, the size formation. It is often
easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize,
impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary
and so forth) than to think up the English words
that will cover one's meaning. The result, in
general, is an increase in slovenliness and
vagueness.
MEANINGLESS WORDS.
In certain
kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism
and literary criticism, it is normal to come
across long passages which are almost completely
lacking in meaning(2).
Words like romantic, plastic, values, human,
dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as
used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless,
in the sense that they not only do not point to
any discoverable object, but are hardly ever
expected to do so by the reader. When one critic
writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work
is its living quality’, while another writes,
‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's
work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader
accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If
words like black and white were
involved, instead of the jargon words dead
and living, he would see at once that
language was being used in an improper way. Many
political words are similarly abused. The word
Fascism has now no meaning except in so
far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’.
The words democracy, socialism, freedom,
patriotic, realistic, justice have each of
them several different meanings which cannot be
reconciled with one another. In the case of a
word like democracy, not only is there no
agreed definition, but the attempt to make one
is resisted from all sides. It is almost
universally felt that when we call a country
democratic we are praising it: consequently the
defenders of every kind of regime claim that it
is a democracy, and fear that they might have to
stop using that word if it were tied down to any
one meaning. Words of this kind are often used
in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the
person who uses them has his own private
definition, but allows his hearer to think he
means something quite different. Statements like
Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet
press is the freest in the world, The Catholic
Church is opposed to persecution, are almost
always made with intent to deceive. Other words
used in variable meanings, in most cases more or
less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian,
science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois,
equality.
