Yls Said It

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1. It sometimes seems that language has arrived at the point Orwell described in 1984, where the truth becomes plastic and words become a tool for obfuscation rather than communication. The ironic thing, I guess, is that it didn’t take a suffocating police state to impose this – perfect tyranny and perfect freedom apparently lead to the same result…

   If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

   George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

   Comment by LagunaDave — January 30, 2007 @ 2:45 am

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