Politics and the English Language

"Politics and the English Language" (1946) is an essay by George Orwell that criticised the "ugly and inaccurate" written English of his time and examined the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language. The essay has been widely cited in discussions of political communication and rhetoric, particularly in relation to the use of language to shape public perception. The essay focused on political language, which, according to Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind". Orwell believed that the language used was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it. This unclear prose was a "contagion" which had spread to those who did not intend to hide the truth, and it concealed a writer's thoughts from himself and others. He argued that this process was both cultural and political, reinforcing patterns of unclear thinking in public… Read by Richardhanstock. Recorded January 21, 2007; the article may have changed since. The article as it stood when recorded: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=89015735 Article today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language Original recording: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Politics_and_the_English_Language.ogg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). This episode is a format-shifted (MP3) copy redistributed under the same license. This show is an independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation.