orwell

This book was my introduction to Hitchens and to Orwell as something more than 1984 and Animal Farm.

Despite outward appearances, Orwell is not making one of those prescriptivist rants that you sometimes see from people who don't know how language evolves.

Those visions if I follow their reason, probably come into all 3 of the orwell categories.

I wrote a blog post about how After the Deadline (a proofreading software service) relates to the rules George Orwell talks about.

There was an interesting, non-fawning (and less sputtering than the LL post) piece on Orwell and some of his work by Julian Barnes in the NY Review of Books earlier this year.

He likely means "foreign" in a more classical sense: Orwell tends to favor Anglo-Saxon derived words over Norman French-derived words.

Orwell quite skillfully analyzes several of the most common problems with political prose, describes how they operate, and their pernicious effect.

The Language Log author completely ignores the terrible examples that Orwell calls out, and the entire premise of the article, in his rush to nitpick Orwell’s prose and “prove” him a hypocrite.

Orwell’s prose where he “breaks” his rules remains clear, concise, and stylish – obviously said rules can be broken without yielding awful language.

I must say, calling Orwell’s essay a “language crime” is more than a bit overblown.

This blog post’s “jibes” miss the essay’s spirit, and Orwell’s playful (often ironic) tone, and thereby misread its substance, I think.

If all I'd ever got from Hitchens were the desire to read more Orwell, that would have been enough.

He likely means "foreign" in a more classical sense: Orwell tends to favor Anglo-Saxon derived words over Norman French-derived words.

The Language Log author completely ignores the terrible examples that Orwell calls out, and the entire premise of the article, in his rush to nitpick Orwell’s prose and “prove” him a hypocrite.

Orwell’s prose where he “breaks” his rules remains clear, concise, and stylish – obviously said rules can be broken without yielding awful language.

I must say, calling Orwell’s essay a “language crime” is more than a bit overblown.

Orwell quite skillfully analyzes several of the most common problems with political prose, describes how they operate, and their pernicious effect.

If all I'd ever got from Hitchens were the desire to read more Orwell, that would have been enough.

If we don't want something worse than Orwell's worst nightmares, I really think the only solution is to reject free.