Politics and the English Language

POLITICS AND
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE  

This is a classic essay (click on above link or other links: 1, 2), by British author, George Orwell, on the abuses of style in English. Read the whole essay for a good education in writing precision; but if you lack the time or motivation, consider Orwell's deliberately verbose paraphrase of a famous text from the book of Ecclesiastes in the language of today to see how language can be periphrastically mangled:
    "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.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel 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."

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