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What did George Orwell argue in “Politics and the English Language”?
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George Orwell
Known best for his powerful anti-utopian novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), English author George Orwell came to be regarded as a prophetic voice in 20th-century literature.
In his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell argued that there is a direct connection between political conformity and the degradation of the English language.1
Orwell contended that modern political speech and writing are frequently used to defend the indefensible, necessitating the use of euphemism, question-begging, and vague terminology to obscure reality. He illustrated this by noting how brutal acts, such as the bombardment of villages, are sanitized through labels like "pacification". Ultimately, he argued that this reliance on evasive and meaningless language serves to debase the language itself, reflecting a broader trend of political dishonesty.1