Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
Orwell wrote “Politics and the English Language” in 1946, but it reads like a diagnosis of 2026. He argues that the English language is in decline not because of any single bad influence, but because of habits that spread by imitation: dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and meaningless words. The real cost is not aesthetic. Sloppy language makes sloppy thinking easier, and sloppy thinking is what allows political lies to pass unnoticed.
The full essay is available at theorwellfoundation.com.
Dying metaphors are the original slop. Orwell identifies a class of worn-out metaphors that “have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” His list includes ring the changes on, ride roughshod over, Achilles’ heel, and swan song. These are the 1946 equivalent of LLM-generated filler. A writer who uses them is not thinking. He is assembling prefabricated parts.
Verbal false limbs eliminate action. Phrases like render inoperative, make contact with, and exhibit a tendency to replace simple verbs with bloated constructions. The passive voice proliferates. Nouns stack on nouns. The sentence gets longer and the meaning gets weaker. Orwell’s diagnosis: “The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs.”
Pretentious diction disguises bad arguments. Words like phenomenon, objective, eliminate, and liquidate give “an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments.” Adjectives like epoch-making and historic dignify the sordid. This is how you call a massacre pacification or a land grab rectification of frontiers.
The Ecclesiastes test is devastating. Orwell translates a verse from Ecclesiastes (49 words, 60 syllables, everyday English) into modern bureaucratic prose: “Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity.” The modern version has 38 words, 90 syllables, 18 Latin roots, and zero vivid images. It means less than half of what the original says in less space.
The six rules are a minimum viable style guide. Never use a metaphor you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase or jargon if you can think of an everyday equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
The essay predicts LLM-generated text. The mechanism Orwell describes – “gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else” – is exactly what a language model does. His warning that ready-made phrases “will construct your sentences for you, even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent” is not a metaphor. It is the product spec. The only difference is that in 1946 the prefabricated parts came from political pamphlets. In 2026 they come from a probability distribution.
The takeaway: Read the essay, then run any recent political statement, corporate memo, or LLM output through Orwell’s framework. Count the dying metaphors. Spot the verbal false limbs. If the test catches more than two violations per paragraph, the writer is not thinking. The words are thinking for them.
Related TMFNK Content
- Slop Cop: Real-Time Detection of LLM Writing Patterns A browser tool that detects exactly the patterns Orwell catalogued, now adapted for AI text. Shows that his framework still works 80 years later.
- How to Write Good: Sam Altman on Writing as Thinking Altman’s writing system echoes Orwell’s rules: short words, clear claims, cut everything unnecessary. The same thesis, separated by 80 years.
- Learn Copywriting in 76 Minutes: Harry Dry’s Framework Dry’s “your best line is your headline” philosophy and emphasis on specificity over abstraction applies Orwell’s rules to modern marketing writing.
Crepi il lupo! 🐺