Orwell on sincerity
June 24, 2008 – Libby Davy – Print
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity
When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
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Added 9 July
This post has sparked some intriguing debate. Makes me want to suggest people read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. And of course Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones and Manjushvara’s Wolf at the Door.
Any other recommendations?
Great quote!
In the 16/17th Centuries, the ‘Inkhorn Controversy’ blew up around people using Latin words instead of old English ones. Latin words came through the Church, and also via French as a consequence of Norman rule. Latin was wielded by those in authority.
My take on it is that Latin words were used to hide meaning from the poor and disempowered, and that this continues today.
Yes, language has always been used to create “us” and “them” - identity, power. If people look at Bohm, they can see another way though.
http://nodestone.com/2008/06/24/the-essence-of-authentic-dialogue/
I guess it’s all about your intention. Do we want to bring people closer together and if so, who. Who do we want to invite in with the words / images / social media we create? Who do we want to leave out?
Language is the external manifestation of our internal energy
The receiver of a communication feel exactly the energy of the sender when wrting or speaking
Sent with love (I intend)
Woolfie
Question:
Do we want to leave anyone out? Can you leave anyone out in a social media world? In my opinion, a truly social environment is open-dialogue whether authentic or not.
I am coming from a marketing background with social media but authenticity and sincerity spread across both platforms of communication whether business or pleasure.
[...] Orwell on sincerity : nodestone [...]
Really interesting area having worked in so many fields where the language developed includes some and excludes others (generally sub-consciously I feel) and where I’ve noticed that just when the ‘rest’ are catching on it suddenly becomes imperative to change the terminology to be more ‘accessible’. This is happening now with CSR/Corporate Social Responsibility, just as the term is becoming more generally understood a whole movement begins among practitioners to re-invent it - although admittedly it is a rubbish term.
PS on the latin v. common language I was really interested to have it pointed out that our words for meat on the table, pork, beef, mutton come from the Norman of the masters who ate it, while the animals themselves come from the anglo saxon of the farmers.
The Orwell quotation is from his essay, “Politics and the English Language”, which should be required reading for aspiring politicians or for anyone who genuinely wants to communicate honestly - which come to think of ot probably excludes politicians!!
The essay includes many examples of ugly and imprecise writing.
Towards the end , Orwell says that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Hence such phrases as “collateral damage” referring to civilian deaths in a war zone
I recommend that you read the whole essay as it gives good advice on avoiding sloppy writing and thinking.
Okay, I have to brag. Jenny Davy is my dear Ma. Bloggers often remark how they are not sure if anyone other than their mum reads their blog, but what a mum!
Erudite ex-English teacher, turned bridge supremo. Here’s a link to the essay. I always do as I’m told / guided, don’t I Ma so printing it off right now… ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language
Hi Libby, Libby’s ma, & assorted human relatives
I’m sure there is something in Orwell’s idea (we’ve all flustered), but in my experience some people speak and write with in a meandering way almost tending towards ‘the sound of a thought unfolding’ - others are terse. Some feel at home with enabling jargon which can carry a sort of mystical power to protect them from the chaos of novelty and uncontained situations. Some find what they mean in the oddiest ways of putting things.
The biggest lie in the dictionary is that by sharing a vocabulary we might agree that we mean the same thing by the same word.
A more (post)modern position on sincerity is Lacan’s “we start to speak when we first lie” (his point being that before that moment babies are parrots, it’s the first time intention redirects us from that)
Long day, long ramble. Not to be evasive :J