[HN Gopher] Politics and the English Language (1946)
___________________________________________________________________
Politics and the English Language (1946)
Author : cocacola1
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-01-06 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.orwellfoundation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.orwellfoundation.com)
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Politics and the English Language (1946)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067007 - May 2021 (20
| comments)
|
| _Politics and the English Language (George Orwell, 1946)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24828499 - Oct 2020 (1
| comment)
|
| _George Orwell on Writing and the 4 Questions Great Writers Must
| Ask Themselves_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712057 -
| Dec 2019 (1 comment)
|
| _George Orwell - Politics and the English Language (1946)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13538496 - Feb 2017 (21
| comments)
|
| _George Orwell: Politics and the English Language_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12327324 - Aug 2016 (1
| comment)
|
| _George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1946)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12271030 - Aug 2016 (150
| comments)
|
| _George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1946)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10452900 - Oct 2015 (2
| comments)
|
| _George Orwell: Politics and the English Language (1946)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6643231 - Oct 2013 (62
| comments)
|
| _"Politics and the English Language," By George Orwell_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6277405 - Aug 2013 (2
| comments)
|
| _Politics and the English Language [1945]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3752825 - March 2012 (13
| comments)
|
| _George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" 1946_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2079477 - Jan 2011 (1
| comment)
|
| _George Orwell - Politics and the English Language_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=997940 - Dec 2009 (14
| comments)
|
| _Orwell: Politics and the English Language_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=636287 - June 2009 (14
| comments)
|
| _Orwell Essay: Politics And The English Language_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=272211 - Aug 2008 (11
| comments)
|
| _Politics and the English Language_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=115519 - Feb 2008 (5
| comments)
|
| (Reposts are ok on HN after a year or so:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
| LesZedCB wrote:
| i think it's really funny how many of his examples of dead
| metaphors are still used
|
| > Ring the changes on, take up the cudgels for, toe the line,
| ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into
| the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in
| troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan
| song, hotbed.
|
| the whole essay is hilariously savage. also this observation back
| in 1946:
|
| > The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it
| signifies 'something not desirable'.
|
| and finally
|
| > You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting
| the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your
| sentences for you - even think your thoughts for you, to a
| certain extent - and at need they will perform the important
| service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.
|
| reminds me of the capabilities of a certain chatbot as well.
|
| i ultimately disagree because i'm too taken by
| descontructionists. orwell's assertion of finding pure, simple
| meaning in clear language, well i don't believe in that.
|
| > When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and
| then, if you want to describe the thing you have been
| visualising, you probably hunt about till you find the exact
| words that seem to fit it.
|
| [citation needed]
| salawat wrote:
| Are you an aphantasiac? (Lacking of the capacity to mentally
| "see" or generate imagery).
|
| That would be the only reason why I'd think this would not be
| self-evident. If I think of a concrete sidewalk, I literally
| imagine a suburban sidewalk composed of squares of poured
| concrete. I have a mental image of it prior to picking the
| words to describe it. Maybe it's white and smoothed, or gray
| and rough... But I still wordlessly visualize it.
|
| In short, Wittgenstein put it best. Ways of life precede the
| language that nominatively identifies them.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| i'm not, but that's an interesting conclusion.
|
| my experience is that my 'conscious' thought is a constant
| thread of language in monologue. i'm not very good at
| meditation (though i don't practice much) because quieting my
| internal monologue feels nearly impossible. putting on
| podcasts helps me fall asleep because i no longer need to
| generate my own movement, but the external speaking can relax
| me.
|
| i personally fall slightly more into the (maybe Lacanian)
| view that language is essential - maybe even primordial - in
| our formation of subjectivity. i don't necessarily buy into
| it 'scientifically' per se, but i'm skeptical of pure ideas
| existing without language, at least in any human subject
| capable of language. i don't really know, this is one of
| those places where i'm always fine tuning and changing my
| thoughts.
| salawat wrote:
| So... Out of silliness. Consciously repeat a single word,
| say "blueberry", over and over and over and over again
| until you're sick of it, then try to visualize your actual
| house.
|
| This is a mind quieting exercise that I read about in a
| book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
|
| Many people will get stuck when drawing, only making the
| crude symbols of the thing they are thinking about because
| they are thinking with the linguistic part of their brain.
| Much of the spacial processing tends to take place in the
| opposite hemisphere of the brain.
|
| Repeating that same word over and over and over will
| exhaust the language processing part of your brain,
| allowing the non-verbal parts to do do their thing more
| effectively.
|
| Relevant book: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-
| Brain-Definitive/d...
|
| Bonus bit: The concern you have with the intrinsic link
| between language and thinking is exactly why Orwell was
| completely justified to my thinking to be concerned about
| manipulation of language as a mechanism to control thought.
|
| The escape hatch, as it were, is that language as a concept
| transcends any of it's concrete implementations, and is
| intrinsically bound to the act of being. We are immersed in
| the business of being, and one can imagine a mute,
| illiterate thinking being nevertheless existing and
| thinking, without spoken, written, or heard language. Their
| language would just be to point at what it is they are
| trying to describe, or recalling the memory of it. Our
| words as spoken or written, are just a shorthand that
| allows us to communicate with one another and evoke a
| shared experience of being.
|
| Everything is language. A language can constrain your
| thinking within the context and grammar of that language,
| but another language lacking the same constraints need not
| necessarily constrain thinking in the same way.
|
| Wittgenstein thusly posits that the very act of Philosophy
| is constantly engaging in language games, in which we
| experiment with changing up the rules by which we
| communicate in the attempt to forge shared understanding.
|
| In short: Communication is really hard, and once you start
| thinking about, you'll really start having to wonder
| whether anyone really does deep and meaningful "we're
| saying the same thing about the same thing" level
| communication a lot less than we think we do.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| "Fascist" is one of those curious words when - used outside
| serious history - it says more about the person using it than
| it does about what the person is describing.
| asplake wrote:
| And let's not forget that Orwell was an active participant in
| that serious history. Makes his comment especially
| noteworthy, surprising even
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| IIRC the official stance of the USSR at that time was that
| Trotsky of all people was a fascist - a very modern usage
| of the word. I imagine Orwell - as a non-Stalinist
| socialist - was aware of it.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Even before: it's been a long time since I read
| "Homage..." but I would not be surprised if POUM had been
| calling the anarchists fascists at some point.
| AnEro wrote:
| So he basically predicted the current news cycle issues with
| American/western media political education. For example if it's
| not laissez-faire capitalism then it's socialism and heavens
| forbid the government is the one doing the work then it's
| communism. However, if you explain to the average person what
| bill/policy/plan does, alot more will agree and not care and
| think it's great until the buzzwords they remember to dislike
| come out.
|
| Basically use buzzwords strategically, people will agree on more
| than one expects if you get to the core of what's happening. When
| you use buzzwords the connotations already is set and taints
| everything you use around them
| altruios wrote:
| Buzzwords, key phrases... I.E. 'hooks'.
|
| Thoughts don't only compete along the vector of truthfulness,
| they also compete along the vector of stickiness.
|
| I predict an acceleration in this tactic (and others) in most
| media going forward.
| DenisM wrote:
| > When you use buzzwords the connotations already is set and
| taints everything you use around them
|
| The technical term for this is "framing", fwiw.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| for those who want to explore this more, here's a very short
| PDF by Lakoff describing Simple Framing[1], and the longer
| version [2]
|
| [1] http://www.clarityphase.com/Framing/Simple%20Framing%20Ge
| org...
|
| [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34459.Metaphors_We_Li
| ve_...
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| It didn't predict it, so much as it shows a continuous historic
| link.
| iambateman wrote:
| The first time I read this essay was in 2011, and it changed the
| way I write. Highly recommend!
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| shorter Orwell: write so that your readers may be confident you
| are not an LLM?
| raincom wrote:
| Academics, esp in humanities and social sciences, are masters of
| bullshitting; they learn this art from their mentors (Ph.D
| advisors, teachers), who have mastered that. Just look at the
| followers of Foucault, Derrida, etc.
| avhception wrote:
| When the cashiers in the big supermarket chain store in my
| neighborhood started to use a standard, corporate mandated phrase
| that included the company name and ended with something like "did
| you get everything you need?" I was irritated at first and
| started to get angry after a while. I'm usually a cheerful person
| that gives the cashiers a smile and a nod and wishes them a nice
| weekend or something. But that phrase felt totally alien, it
| deprived the whole little exchange of any humanity. I think the
| cashiers hated it, too. Luckily, it didn't catch on. Maybe it was
| German stubbornness or something. I'm really glad it's gone.
| mhink wrote:
| Oh, I detest this as well. At Chik-Fil-A in the US, employees
| are basically required to say "my pleasure" in response to
| "thank you", and it comes off so artificial- maybe even culty.
| It's even worse when the employee in question is clearly in a
| bad mood or something. Either way, it kinda makes me avoid
| saying "thank you" at all; most of the time I'll try to come up
| with some other polite valediction to avoid making them say it.
| ggm wrote:
| A polemic arguing for plain English. What it lacks is a
| comparison to other tongues (much communist rhetoric is a
| translation from either German or Russian or Chinese or
| Vietnamese or Italian or Spanish so demands questions about
| choice of metaphorical equivalency which probably is fed by
| dictionaries, and would tend to archaisms as a consequence)
|
| Not really confined to politics either, unless you regard all
| argumentative writing (as in writing presenting a side of an
| argument of reasoning) as politics.
| shaftoe444 wrote:
| The modern translation from Ecclesiastes is just so funny.
|
| > 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.
|
| Becomes
|
| > Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compels the
| conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities
| exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but
| that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably
| be taken into account.
| hughw wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this here.
| Animats wrote:
| That's so Orwell.
|
| Orwell's job during WWII was translating news into Basic English,
| the 1000 word vocabulary, for radio transmission to the colonies.
| (India, Hong Kong, etc.) He had to take out ambiguity,
| euphemisms, and verbosity to hammer news into that limited
| vocabulary. He discovered that this is a political act. Removing
| ambiguity from political writing changes the meaning. It cannot
| be done neutrally, because reducing the ambiguous to the concrete
| requires making a decision.
|
| Hence this essay, and, later, Newspeak.
|
| (Source: "Orwell, the Lost Writings".)
| svat wrote:
| Even the books and essays he wrote before WWII have the same
| lucid style and clarity of thought: so it may be fair to say
| Orwell was always interested in clear (seeing and thinking and)
| communication, even before noticing how much of the opposite
| there was everywhere.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This has a lot of implications for translations and translators
| that attempt to "disambiguate" the original because it contains
| difficult to translate meanings.
|
| It makes me rethink all the translated political speeches I've
| ever read.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Some of the most salient phrases of political speech are the
| Rorschach meanings: deliberately ambiguous in hopes each
| supporting audience will ascribe their own preferred
| interpretation to the speaker's intent.
|
| cf _Yes, Minister_
| largepeepee wrote:
| Ah, yes minister.
|
| Probably the most intelligent political comedy of all time,
| used to be a must-watch, and still highly regarded for the
| intelligentsia in multiple countries.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| This is also at core the problem with the current movements
| against "making moderation political." Moderation is inherently
| ideological for the same reasons; there is no neutral position
| from which to do it because it involves making decisions about
| _what may be included_. A specific moderation policy may be
| terrible but "it's political" can't be the reason, because it
| applies to all of them.
|
| Same thing with "correct" dialects of english, norms around
| hospitality, civility, showing respect etc. You can establish
| what is most common and demand people adhere to it, but that
| doesn't make it neutral.
| woooooo wrote:
| Yeah, we all have biases, and fish don't know they're in
| water.. but is _an attempt_ to be unbiased so much to ask?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| attempts are laudable, but ... towards which "neutral"?
|
| (this is where a closed forum, like a mailing list, has an
| easier time: one can aim for "what is generally acceptable
| among the known readership". _To Kill A Mockingbird_ has a
| wonderful illustration of code switching, but was recently
| unacceptable to quote on a forum dealing with under- and
| over-class biases, both explicit and implicit, exactly
| because it literally used the n-word, and not only did it
| use it, but needed to do so, demonstrating the lines
| between in- and out-group usage. When it came to forum
| policy, the distinction between _use_ and _mention_ was
| lost.)
|
| cf https://www.tatler.com/article/nancy-mitford-u-and-non-
| u-lan...
| Natsu wrote:
| That's one way to frame the issue, but the other side of it
| would be that they want moderation to be more inclusive so as
| not to further other somewhat less than half the population
| and worsen the political divide.
|
| It isn't neutral in either direction, of course, and is part
| of a growing push-back against the sort of ideology that
| rejects all names for and criticism of itself.
| marcusverus wrote:
| You're intentionally muddying the waters by conflating
| common-sense rules like "you can't say the-n-word", with the
| kind of political moderation that's problematic ("you can't
| share articles about lab leak theory").
|
| If speech is political enough that you're not sure if it's
| political, it's political.
| bapqpa wrote:
| > You're intentionally muddying the waters by conflating
| common-sense rules like "you can't say the-n-word",
|
| Now try implementing that policy on a rap forum. One
| person's "common sense" is another person's nonsense.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I mean first off you don't have any particularly privileged
| insight into my intentions so let's just stick to what I am
| saying here today alright?
|
| But that said, "muddying the waters" is a particular view
| of it but yes I am pointing out that they are
| _qualitatively the same_. What is or isn 't common sense is
| a value judgement you make based off of experiences and
| your estimation of who shares them and to what degree. It's
| not inherently neutral.
|
| The two examples you mention are excellent demonstrations!
| 80 years ago that sort of language would have been
| expected, 50 it would have been tolerated, now it isn't.
| Because of changing political reality, which moderation
| polices are a part of.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-06 23:01 UTC)