Politics and the English Language 政治與英語（英文版）

誰曾想在一本批判詞彙濫用的書裏學了最多的詞彙。看來“文學是一種巧言令色”在各個國家都適用，當真實情感被掩藏在高大上的詞彙裏，其實就丟掉了被理解、被共鳴的可能性。所以表達的準確性很重要，真實有溫度的表達才能獲得同樣真摯的反饋。

覺得這本書值得一讀的。 在現在的社會，我們網上看到很多東西。 思維方式收到很大變化。 這裏說到：被動語態 不只是語法選擇，它會影響人思考問題的方式。 • 如果習慣用 “X was done” 而不是 “A did X”，人就容易在思想上模糊 責任、行動者、因果關係。 • 長期下來，人的思維可能就會變得“被動”，覺得很多事是“自然發生的”，而不是“某個人/某個機構選擇並造成的” 。 每天可以寫日記，用主動語法寫自己做的事情，明確自己的責任以及自己可以承擔的後果。 這樣有利於覆盤。

喬治奧威爾寫的關於政治和英語表達（主要是寫作）的一本小書，列舉了當時英語表達常見的問題，語言辛辣，前段時間看的《The Elements of Style》和《On Writing Well》也對他的洞見形成了呼應，語言是表達思想的工具，通過簡潔形象的語言清晰地表達出我們的想法纔是我們進行語言表達的首要目的。

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. 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.

Language is a political issue.

Orwell老師的作品集陪伴了我高二高三😭老熟人了，當時覺得無聊現在回來看還挺有意思，想了解英語的可以看看這篇（？）內容很貼近現實 This was one of my year 12 prescribed texts, back then it felt dry and preachy. But coming back to it now, I actually get what Orwell was on about, and I think he was way ahead of his time. At the surface level, it seems like he's just complaining about bad writing, with the long sentences, vague words, overused metaphors, and unnecessary jargon. But what he's really arguing is that the way we write affects how we think. If our language gets lazy, so does our thinking. And if we start accepting vague, abstract, or manipulative language (especially in politics), we make it easier for lies and bad ideas to slip through unnoticed. So yeah, high school me wasn't wrong for thinking it was dry, but now I see why this essay still gets quoted decades later. This whole essay is about how to spot bullshit in a world full of political spin and corporate jargon, hence Orwell's message feels more relevant than ever.

非常好且非常精簡的一本書！開篇作者舉了五個“爛英語”例子，一步步論證爛英語的特徵及其產生原因並提供了可以規避使用的詞，可以說是“英式英語之鑑”但短小又精悍的一篇議論文。語言是思想的邊界，在我們傳遞思想時，如何讓語言有效有質量的傳遞信息，作者給了許多的啓發。 1. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. 2. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. 3. ome metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. 4. there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in English. 5.it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. 6. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. 7. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. 8.modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. 9. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White Papers and the speeches of under-secretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid,home-made turn of speech. 10. In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. 11. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. 12. 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 squirting out ink. 13. When the general atmosphere is bad,language must suffer. 14. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. 15. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures or sensations. 16. Never use a long word where a short one will do. 17. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. 18. Never use the passive where you can use the active. 19. and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. 20. Political language-and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. 21. but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

我贊成他的說法，但這是批判而非建設性的意見。法學論文寫作也充滿大詞，大詞有時是必要的——去掩藏一些分歧或者不體面的事實，這或許是一種自我保護，但也有可能和作者說的一樣，是爲了掩蓋惡行。 我的感悟是，不要因爲喜歡邏輯和抽象的美感而忘記瑣碎的現實。

這或許也是電子版的好處，可以出這麼短的書，如果是紙質版，考慮到成本收益就很難。

我願稱之爲“中式英語之鑑”的濃縮版hhhh