Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.Never use the passive where you can use the active.If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.Never use a long word where a short one will do.Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.I think the following rules will cover most cases: One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?.Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?Īnd he will probably ask himself two more:. What image or idiom will make it clearer?.Thus, you may want to hear some of Orwells writing tips.Ī scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: Orwell excoriated totalitarian governments in his work, but he was just as passionate about good writing. George Orwell has earned the right to be called one of the finer writers in the English language through such novels as 1984, Animal Farm, and Down and Out in Paris and London, and essays like "Shooting an Elephant."
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |