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. note 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 of 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.
Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Article comments
1 - Marty
Anyone who reads this long-winded albeit useful essay must be commended. Mind your language!
2 - Luke Welke
George Orwell: Politics and the English language
George Orwell in this essay exposes the abuses of language in the political and journalistic writing of his day. He points out three categories of bad and unethical writing: dying metaphors, operators or false limbs, pretentious diction. Dying metaphors are phrases that have been drained of meaning due to overuse and serve as a substitute for original thought. A writer will use operators and false limbs instead of going to the trouble of coming up with the appropriate verb. Operators and false limbs are connective phrases that bolster an inadequate or weak sentence with a false sense of symmetry. Meaningless words are general terms that have no particular referent, but are loaded with emotional connotations. This article has much relevance to modern political discourse. The language of modern political discourse is rife with meaningless emotional content that manipulates the readers/listeners emotional reaction to what is said. Jargon twists language to usurp rational thought by strapping emotional language into empty rhetoric, it makes allusions to vaguely defined symbols to create mental associations to trigger psychological reactions. If you eliminate the manipulative content in the jargon laden writing that passes for political discourse today, you will find in it, no real factual content. There is no real information that is related to things-in-the-world, it consists of a chain of abstract associations with no real content. Orwell talks about how political writing softens its subject matter to distort the truth. This is more prevalent then ever today. Political rhetoric describes harsh realities in terms that soften their impact on the reader. For instance, they will describe civilian casualties as “soft targets” or “collateral damage”. These terms remove the human element from discourse and replaces it with an abstraction. The more abstract discourse becomes the less involved the general public will be with what is being done in their name. Massively funded think tanks and public relations corporations work tirelessly designing ways of manipulating the public through language and image. Orwell is necessary for this class because he predicted the direction in which the world was heading. By reading his writing we can understand how we are being manipulated and used by elite power. Orwell was a pessimist and saw the future as “a bootheel stamping on the face of humanity forever”. I fear he may have been right.