I first encountered “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell in a composition class as a first-semester freshman at the University of Oklahoma. Being more innocent and ignorant then than I am now, I did not understand the elegance, wisdom, and importance of Orwell’s essay. Although it is primarily about the expression of political ideas, Orwell’s insights in “Politics…” apply to public discourse in general whether from individuals, political parties, businesses, or other organizations.
His essay should be required reading not only for college students but for every citizen. Here is a link:
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/
At the end of the essay he writes:
“[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts… if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“Each of these passages has faults of its own [five passages he cites as examples of bad writing], but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.”
Examples of the sort of assault on language that Orwell describes are as common as mold around the toilet of a dive bar. Here is a typical one, a letter I received recently from a small arts program affiliated with a large university. To avoid embarrassing the institution and the people mentioned in the letter, I have changed their names to some taken from the splendid Wooster-Jeeves stories by P.G. Wodehouse. Those familiar with those stories might find that the letter below feels in places like something Bertie Wooster himself could have written. I have changed only names but left the rest untouched except to add my comments.
The Drones Center for the Fine Arts is excited (strange phrasing, as though a “center” could be excited) to announce that Director Bingo Little has been promoted to the position of Associate Vice President for the Arts and will serve as a senior member of the University of Snodsbury Arts leadership team (trite but not as bad as what follows). He will retain his appointment as the Director of the Center and serve in a dual capacity.
In addition to helping to set the strategic vision (a term common in colleges and universities for a collection of meaningless platitudes) for University Arts, an important area of focus in his portfolio (more jargon—what was “focus” of Jefferson’s “portfolio” at the Continental Congress?) will be working closely with the Office for Philanthropy (what universities typically call “development,” a euphemism for shaking down and sucking up to corporations, rich people, and gullible alumni) to create a comprehensive funding plan (such plans are usually termed “comprehensive,” whatever that means) for University Arts, to include fundraising through individual and corporate donors, as well as foundations and government granting agencies.
In addition, Bingo will be developing a collaborative process (as my mom would say, they’re fixin’ to get ready) to determine the long-term strategic vision (there it is again, coming up like burps after eating bad tuna fish casserole) of the University Museum of Art, working closely with Honoria Glossop, who will serve in the new position of Museum Deputy Director.
“Under the direction of Vice President for the Arts, Augustus Fink-Nottle, the university is poised for arts leadership (tired and vapid praise) and I am thrilled (really??) to be a part of the team that will vision (I have never before seen “vision” as a verb and hope that I will not again), plan, and realize University Arts goals,” Bingo writes. “I have learned many lessons during my work to effect transformative change (awkward construction that does not make much sense—isn’t change itself transformative?) at the Center and I am pleased to bring those learnings (I have not heard that word before either, fortunately) and the same level of energy and experience to the broader University Arts initiatives (where would universities be without “initiatives”—perhaps preparing students for citizenship?).
Vice President for the Arts Augustus Fink-Nottle says of the appointments “I congratulate both Bingo and Honoria for their outstanding efforts thus far in advancing the arts at the university. I couldn’t be more excited (thrilled and excited seem to be common emotions in university news releases) about their contributions to come in their new roles (awkward phrasing). I believe these promotions are an important step in the direction of fulfilling the University’s strategic goal (similar to a strategic vision?) of making the arts a major focal point on campus, in the community and region, and making University Arts a successful, impactful reality (this sentence has three fine examples of meaningless bullshit, in particular “successful, impactful reality”).
When a friend of mine served as “Public Information Officer” for a university, she referred to herself as a professional liar. This news release of platitudes and empty phrases captures that sentiment quite well. Her press releases were at least well-written, which this one is not.
I recently came across another example of meaningless language. I was thinking about an organization whose meetings I used to attend when I was at Oregon Institute of Technology more than a decade ago. At that time the organization was called Oregon BEST (Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies), a group funded in large part by the State of Oregon to “commercialize” research done at the state’s public universities. I was wondering what was going on with BEST nowadays, so I did an internet search and found out that the group had morphed into a different type of organization and changed its name to VertueLab. Here is a link to a page on its website that describes it: https://vertuelab.org/about
Its mission statement is an apt illustration of Orwell’s point about slovenly language: “To unleash innovation and entrepreneurship that will solve environmental challenges and catalyze shared economic prosperity.”
What does that concatenation of platitudes and generalities really mean? Unleash? Innovation? Entrepreneurship? Catalyze shared prosperity? We are so inundated by similar jargon to the point that we have become inured to it.
The website offers many more examples of the same sort of drivel, including the etymology of the name Vertuelab. If you look at it, imagine what Orwell would say.
You are such a fierce editor! I love to slap that meaningless drivel down. Fun to think of Bernie Wooster!
Meaningless drivel nails it! I was going to include this quote from Robert Graves in my post but forgot: “The writing of good English is a moral matter.”
So you are a Wodehouse fan, too. Right, ho! I only discovered the inane world of Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves earlier this summer. I have read a couple of dozen short stories and three novels. It is certainly fluff, but it is delightful fluff.