It’s a petty exercise, and Orwell himself provides an escape clause for his list of rules for writing clear English: “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.” But it has made us all feel slightly better for having our writing crutches pushed out from under us. Every time I’ve taught George Orwell’s famous 1946 essay on misleading, smudgy writing, “ Politics and the English Language,” to a group of undergraduates, we’ve delighted in pointing out the number of times Orwell violates his own rules-indulges some form of vague, “pretentious” diction, slips into unnecessary passive voice, etc.
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