George Orwell’s Five Rules

Twisted convolution is a societal pathology. I mean, sometimes language is to entertain. In politics, we always see this happened. When some politician speak with their twisted convolution to entertain their constituent. Just like when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the president of Indonesia, speak about Ruyati’s execution in Saudi Arabia few days ago. It was an entertainment for Indonesian. But I believe that nobody satisfied by the entertainment. This is a kind of societal pathology when everybody that have public responsibility never speak effectively. They only take speech as entertainment, to entertain their constituent. Therefore, I think we have to look back what George Orwell had said on his book, Politics and the English Language. Orwell teach us 5 rules on how to use language effectively:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

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