Many of the statements in Orwell’s piece “Politics and the English Language”could have just as easily been written today. When Orwell penned the essay, he said that language was incompetent (1946). This statement is especially relevant when one considers the way the world’s population communicates in the present day. Communication has become much more functional and succinct, as Orwell promoted. The primary role of the written language must still be to inform, yet, the ways in which communication is parleyed has changed greatly. I doubt Orwell would be surprised, yet he would most certainly be chagrined. For as much as he warns against wordiness, the English language has indeed gone through quite a reformation.
I refer, to digital communication in the form of texting, “twittering”, and even blogging. Never before has the English language been so changed. In a few lines or less, often eschewing grammar or punctuation, the population of English speakers is changing the format of what has become acceptable in our vernacular.
Orwell states, “A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient,” summing up the very manner in which texting has become a prolific form of the written word (1946). This is why, when texting, I make sure to use proper grammar and spelling techniques. I have several friends who do the same and much prefer to read their messages, than those in which the language has been molested and acronym-ized until it is barely comprehendible.
Works Cited
Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” 28 Jan. 2011 http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
