I found Orwell’s view of how the English language has been deteriorating and withering away to practically nothing sort of entertaining. I can’t imagine what he would think of how much the English language has changed since his death. With the onslaught of text messaging between cell phones and social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace in the modern technology age, our language has become sort of impossible to recognize nowadays with abbreviations such as “LOL” or “BTW”. I think Orwell’s concerns are so much before his time, and he has no idea how real his concern really is.
I think the set of rules that showcases at the end of the article are rules that could indeed still be applied to most writing in the modern age, particularly formal writing such as literary essays or reviews. His way of encouraging people to display the English language in the easiest way possible without confusing readers seems to be his goal, and I believe that this is something that most people today fail to do. In formal writing, it is fairly common to read students’ work that involves so many metaphors and similes that can pollute a paper in order to just fill up a page requirement that it takes away from the real topic that’s supposed to be discussed. The idea of using a short word instead of a long word is something that I personally struggle with because this is also a need for most students in today’s academic society to seem more intelligent than their peers.
As a whole, I feel that society has totally gone against everything Orwell suggests. He urges writers to be more simplified and to the point while still, it seems that the more “intelligent sounding” a piece of writing is today, the better marks it could potentially get in the classroom.
