> One more try: Orwell's point about impoverishing language as a means
> of social control still stands. If we wish to contain thought and
> behavior in narrow, socially approved parameters, we should eliminate
> all "jargon" and make language as "simple" as possible. (I can't
> resist: the will to "simple" language is an instantiation of--the will
> to power!)
There is absolutely no way that you can put this together with "Politics and the English Language." The unforgettable passage in that essay is the following:
"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 favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective consideration 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."
Orwell describes the various ways that language can be used to conceal meaning and he points to academics as well as demagogues for engaging in this. I am not arguing against needed complication. But I am arguing against the need for private languages when the common mother tongue will do. I am extremely suspicious of unnecessary complication and of private languages.
Quite a few people on this thread are equating "simple" with "stupid." I wonder why. It takes a life time to achieve simplicity. That's why many artists write/compose more simply as they mature.
Joanna