ENGR 183EW Study Guide - Winter 2019, Comprehensive Final Exam Notes - Order Of Australia, Information Age, Veterans Day
Document Summary
George orwell, "politics and the english language," 1946 (abridged) Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the english language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to airplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer.
