Happy Birthday to George Orwell, one of our favourite novelists.
Born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bengal, India, in 1903, George Orwell, novelist, essayist and critic, went on to become best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
He was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism.
One of our favourite books by Orwell is Politics and the English Language in which he writes about why the decline of the English language is happening:
It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
He also gives us six sound rules for good writing, rules that MediaWise attempts to keep and also passes onto our clients. They are:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Sound advice from one of our favourite authors.