Southwestern College: English 115 (69) 52404: Reading and Composition: Exposition and Argument

spring 2010: 1/13/2010-5/20/2010

Instructor: Leon Lanzbom

Class Time and Location: Th 6:-8:50 bldg 410 rm 414 and Th. 9:00-9:50 PM bldg. 420 rm 423

Puppet Strings Handout. You will use this sheet to help take notes on all your readings. Click the pic for your pdf copy.

Rhetorical Precis We will be using these forms to help summarize our readings and prepare our essays. Click the pic for your pdf copy.

Analysis Essay Workshop Download your analysis essay packet here.  Use this as the basis of all you essays in class. Click the pic or HERE

Analysis Essay Rubric Download. Click the skin sample below.

Class Menu: English 115-69 spring 2010

Each week's readings will be due by the day of class, in other words all the readings for week 3 should be finished by week 3's class.

Note: Our syllabus is subject to change--to add or to subtract material---depending on how many hazy eyes I see.  Any changes will not only be announced and placed on our Website, so do check our site weekly. lanzbom.org

Disclaimer:  You may find the language, or the sexual or violent content of some of the material submitted or assigned in this class offensive. I generally do not censor class reading material. Please see me if you feel offended.  I will offer alternatives for any assignment.

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Week 1: 1/15: Familiarize yourself with the syllabus (download at home from lanzbom.org).  Read it over several times.  Get a jump on week 2's readings. Meet at least two classmates, exchange info.

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Week 2: 1/21: The Writing Process

Monday January 18 Holiday: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

download syllabus, MLA packet, and  "Puppet Strings"  from our website at lanzbom.org. 

Chapter 1: Reading to Write: How to Use This Book: Pay attention to "What's in a Name," on pages 5 & 6, and read "Comprehension" on page 8 and Purpose and Audience on page 9  and �Style and Structure� on page 10. 

Chapters 2: Invention Pay very close attention to pp 30-34, Thesis.

Do exercises 8, 9, and 10 on pages 34-5.

Chapter 3: Arrangement: Recognizing Patterns 37-8.   8 ways to introduce an essay pp 39-40.  On page 41 and 42 know what "body paragraphs" are.  Know also what a "topic sentence is as well as what "unity," and "coherence," and "transitions," and a "well developed" paragraph.  Continue reading to page 47 (exercises are optional, up to you), and finish on page 47, skipping "Constructing a Formal Pattern" on 47-48.

Read up to page 35 in Reading Rhetorically. 

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First Essay: Due Thursday 2/18. 

In a 3 to 5 page essay consider any of our readings such as Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue."  Craft a coherent essay (not just a bunch of facts, but an essay that flows like a story) in which you respond (in an appropriate order) to all of the following components: (I will explain this essay using Amy Tan's work as an example, but you can use any essay you wish.)

1. Identify and provide a brief summary of Tan's argument;

2. Describe and discuss two strategies that Tan uses to support her argument;

3. Describe the overall structure of Tan's essay and explain whether it furthers the aims of the author's argument;

4. Discuss the premise(s) and/or assumption(s) on which her argument is based:

5. Evaluate the extent to which you find the argument convincing.

This essay is not an "agree or disagree" exercise, nor is it intended to generate an extensive summary of the writing. Responses that emphasize personal opinion or summary will not earn a high grade.  I am asking you to stand back and analyze Tan's essay.  Ask questions?  Who is it for?  How is it presented (Her format.  How does she craft and build her argument? Who is it for).  What is the purpose of this essay?  Why would she believe her argument is important? Is Tan's work effective? If so, why?  How have you as the reader changed after reading this work?

Again, remember, that this assignment is asking you to analyze a narrative, not create one.

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Week 3: 1/28

Patterns

"Only Daughter," Sandra Cisneros  96

"Words Left Unspoken," Leah Hager Cohen  168

"Two Ways to Belong in America," Bharati Mukherjee  415

"Suicide Note," Janice Mirikitani 382

Narration: 83-88  Know what a Narrative essay is.

Read 88-89 Avoiding Run-ons.

Read pages 36-70, chapter 3, in Reading Rhetorically. 

1.28 last day to add classes and last day to withdraw with refund

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Week 4: 2/4: The Self

February 6 Last day to withdraw from a class without receiving a �W� grade�3 p.m.

February 6 Last day to file a petition for Credit/No Credit�3 p.m.

Chapter 5: �Editing and Proofreading� P67-79.  This is an important chapter, so really focus.  You will use what you learn here to edit your future work.

Mother Tongue,Amy Tan 487

My First Conk, Malcolm X 285

Strange Tools, Richard Rodriguez 743

Sadie and Maud, Gwendolyn Brooks 447

Description: 143-151 know what a Description Essay is.

Read "Grammar in Context," 151-52: misplaced modifier and a dangling modifier

Reading Rhetorically: CH4:  71-97

Emergency! Truck Battery Trouble for Lanzbom:

Do all work as assigned as found on our syllabus. 

Essay #1 moved up one week, now due 1/18

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Week 5: 2/11:  Noticing the Little Things

February President's Holiday

First essay due on my desk when you walk into class

Exemplification: 203-208: Know how to spot an exemplification essay

Read 209-10 Using commas in a series

Shooting an Elephant,George Orwell 125

Once More to the Lake, E. B. White 186

The Way to Rainy Mountain, N. Scott Momaday  180

Reading Rhetorically 101-117

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2/18 Begin Essay Two:  Assignment: Analysis paper Two Due 3/11

In an essay that offers an introduction with a thesis, topic sentences, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion, I want you to analyze how well rhetorical elements work together, and assess the overall effectiveness of a work or works you choose. Like your first essay, this will be a two to three page rhetorical analysis response to any one of our readings up to this point.  But look for an essay that offers a different form of argument than your first essay choice--Perhaps a poem or an fictional story or a photo.

1. Identify and provide a brief summary of the author's argument;

2. Describe and discuss several strategies that the author uses to support her argument;

3. Describe the overall structure of the author's communication and explain whether it furthers the aims of the author's argument;

4. Discuss the premise(s) and/or assumption(s) on which her argument is based:

5. Evaluate the extent to which you find the argument convincing.

But now we are going to refer to your readings in Reading Rhetorically and weave into your prose at least two of the following:

  1. Locate the main claim (author's purpose) and supporting arguments.  What is the author arguing for?  Is he successful in convincing you of his viewpoint?   Why or why not?   Has he included counterarguments?

  2. Evaluate the use of rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos [How does the author use these appeals to further his argument?]

Week 6: 2/18: Noticing the Little Things cont.

 The Storm, Kate Chopin 194

Words Left Unspoken, Leah Hagar Cohen 168

Four Tatoos (Photo) 218

         -Do Reading Images 219, #1 and #2.

Comparison and Contrast 387-93

Using Parallelism 394

Reading Rhetorically 118-32

February 19 Last day to file a petition for Credit by Challenge Examination: 3 p.m.

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Week 7: 2/25: Noticing the Little Things.

Catch up week (catch up on your writing and readings)

The Amazon Queen, Isabel Allende 173

Five Ways to Kill a Man, Edwin Brock 505

            Do Journal Entry on 506

Begin Cause and Effect: 327-32: understand the term Cause and Effect

The reason is because 337

Reading Rhetorically 132-146

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Week 8: 3/4

Essay 2 continue

Reading Rhetorically 146-60

March 5  Deadline to petition for spring graduation

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Week 9: 3/11 Men and Women

Essay 2 due on my desk

I Want a Wife, Judy Brady

A Peaceful Woman Explains Why She Carries a Gun, Linda M. Hasselstrom

Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls, Katha Pollitt

Argumentation: Deductive/inductive etc 555-567

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Assignment: Analysis paper no 3: Due 4/15 : Here we go again!  As in essay one and two, in an essay that offers an introduction with a thesis, topic sentences, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion, I want you to analyze the rhetorical elements, and assess the overall effectiveness of a third work of your choice. Like your first and second essays, this will be a two to three page rhetorical analysis response to any one of our readings up to this point.  But, here,  look for an essay that offers a different form of argument than your first two essay choice--Perhaps one of our plates, and illustration, a poem if you have not used one, or just choose one of the readings that takes on a social element.  Again, you will include:

1. Identify and provide a brief summary of the author's argument;

2. Describe and discuss several strategies that the author uses to support her argument;

3. Describe the overall structure of the author's communication and explain whether it furthers the aims of the author's argument;

4. Discuss the premise(s) and/or assumption(s) on which her argument is based:

5. Evaluate the extent to which you find the argument convincing.

As in essay two we are going to  refer to your readings in Reading Rhetorically and weave into your prose at least two of the following:

1. Locate the main claim (author's purpose) and supporting arguments [What is the author arguing for?  Is he successful in convincing you of his viewpoint?   Why or why not?   Has he included counterarguments?]

   2. Evaluate the use of rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos [How does the  author use these appeals to further his argument]

Week 10: 3/18  Language and Communication

Sex, Lies, and Conversation, Deborah Tannen 440

The Power of Words in Wartime, Robin Tolmach Lakoff  377

(optional) Politics and the English Language George Orwell, Download HERE

Process essays: 267-70

Avoiding unnecessary shifts 172

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Week 11: 3/25 Language and Communication  

Midterm

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March 31^st Cezar Chevaz day

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Week 12: 4/1: SPRING BREAK

March 29-April 4^th Spring break

Week 13: 4/8

Welcome back

Bring in rough draft of essay 2

Bring in redo "quiz" of essay 1

Argumentation: 555

Know difference between persuasion and argumentation 556

Understand Deductive and Inductive arguments 563-66

Know what Toulmin Logic is: 566

Recognizing Fallacies: Chapter 567-70

Using Transitions: 570-71

Logical Fallacies You Must Know faulty cause and effect: sequential events does not mean one caused the other.  It so happens that every time I wash my car it rains; therefore, washing my car causes it to rain. non sequitur: the conclusion doesn't follow from the evidence.  She will make a good writer because she is a lawyer. (Who says lawyer's are good writers?) begging the question: when you assume as true what you are trying to prove.  You believe that organic bananas are better than non organic bananas, and you argue all stores should therefore carry organic bananas. circular logic: the conclusion restates the evidence.  The team is in last place because they lost more games than other teams. hasty generalization: conclusion based on too little evidence.  Because Japeto had a tough time with his girlfriend, he concluded all girls are no good. either or fallacy: only two choices are given.  Your either religious or your not.  America, love it or leave it. false analogy: two dissimilar things are portrayed as similar. Mom's hamburgers are just like McDonald's. ad hominem: discredit an argument by attacking the person making it.  If you say Lupo is a liar, it doesn't mean his argument is wrong. ad populum: makes appeal to common prejudices, values, and emotions--no facts or reasoning. American cars are better when many parts are made outside the US, and  many foreign cars are made inside the US. red herring: directing attention away from a point to one that people will agree with.  A herring dragged across the trail that dogs are tracking will throw the dogs off the scent.  It is pointless to talk about violence in the city when thousands of people die from cigarettes. slippery slope: taking a first step down a path will lead to later steps.  Smoking pot leads to heroin use.

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April 9 Last day to withdraw from full-semester courses and receive a "W" grade, 3 p.m.

Deadline to petition for summer graduation

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Week 14: 4/15

Essay 3 due today on my desk

Begin final paper: topics will be discussed

Casebook: Does media violence Cause societal Violence? 669

Sizing up the Effects, Sissela Bok 671

Violent Media Is Good for Kids, Gerard Jones  678

Memo to John Grisham: Whatïs Next A Movie Made Me Do It Oliver Stone 686

Violent Films Cry Fire in Crowded Theaters,Michael Zimecki 691

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Final RESEARCH Essay: Due 5/12: Splicing It All Together

In our three essays thus far, we have analyzed how various author's constructed their arguments. For our research project you are going to bind together all three previous essays into one focused  5 to 8 page piece and incorporate at least five other outside sources that illustrate, clarify, and extend, the arguments advanced in  your original essays. In other words, we are going to take the three previous essays we wrote and combine them to form one large essay.

Criteria for Evaluation

Successful papers will:

      Introduce your SUBJECT, what are you trying to do?  Do not come straight out and say, I am going to combine my essays. Yes, you do want to remind the reader of the essays you're writing about, and give some indication of how the paper will proceed, but you want to do it in a smooth manner relying more on the content of the essays and how all three relate though they offer differing forms of argument;  So, you must develop a thesis that will bind your essay.

2. In the body paragraphs, take each of your previous papers, one at a time and show us their claims, audience, purpose, and the arguments etc they present;
3. smoothly integrate information and evidence in MLA format from at least five outside sources (One source can be Reading Rhetorically) and explain how this information helps illustrate, clarify, extend, or complicate the arguments of the previous authors.  In other words, you must find several sources on rhetoric and argumentation to back your work up. (There are thousands of rhetoric books and websites out there.)
4. discuss the significance of the styles of arguments set forth by each author�in what way is our understanding illuminated as a result each context or opposing views? (Does the author use comparison?  Contrast? Examples?  Cause and Effect?  Detail?  Narrative?   how about ethos, pathos, and logos.  Do one of your authors use more of these than the other two?)
5. use an effective structure that carefully guides the reader from one idea to the next;
6. be thoroughly edited so that sentences are readable and appropriate for a college-level paper;
7. include a properly-formatted MLA works cited page.

• Again, resist the urge to think of this as a traditional argumentative research paper. Note that you're not writing a paper that says whether or not you agree with the authors; rather, you're analyzing the three primary texts and searching for other, related sources that shed light on the primary texts (similarities, differences, strategies, what seems to work best, what works least, the purposes, the differing methods of support.).

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Week 15: 4/22

ACLU ad on page 582: Do journal entry on 583

Letter from Birmingham JailMartin Luther King 597

Work on final papers: Bring in first paragraph at least, or outline

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Week 16: 4/29

Marjane Setrapi (We will work on this over weeks 16 &17)

            consider effectiveness or lack of, of pictures vs. words or pictures with words

Workshops on final papers

Riding Giants: 1 page due next week:

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Week 17: 5/5

Persepolis Marjane Setrapi

Second draft of final paper

PEER EDITING

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Week 18: 5/12

final paper due

Review: catch up

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Week 19: 5/19

Final Cataclysmic Shakedown Event: THURSDAY 5/19

Hugs, Goodbyes, maybe a few tears.

All items on syllabus are subject to change.

Politics and the English Language

1946

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. 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. The point is that the process is reversible. 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. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.

These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad -- I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen -- but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:

1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.

   Professor Harold Laski
   (Essay in Freedom of Expression )

2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for bewilder .

   Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia )

3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side ,the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?

   Essay on psychology in Politics (New York )

4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.

   Communist pamphlet

5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!

   Letter in Tribune

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. I list below, with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged:

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically "dead" (e.g. iron resolution ) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed . Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a "rift," for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning withouth those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line . Another example is the hammer and the anvil , now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc.,etc . The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill , a verb becomes a phrase , made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render . In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining ). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that ; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion , and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate , are used to dress up a simple statement and give an aire of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable , are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion . Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien r&eacutgime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung , are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g. , and etc. , there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous , and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers. The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard , etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality , as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality," while another writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. 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. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations -- race, battle, bread -- dissolve into the vague phrases "success or failure in competitive activities." This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing -- no one capable of using phrases like "objective considerations of contemporary phenomena" -- would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase ("time and chance") that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes. As I have tried to show, 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. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot -- it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip -- alien for akin -- making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put up with, is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning -- they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another -- but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a "party line." Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. 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. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find -- this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify -- that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. 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. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning's post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he "felt impelled" to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: "[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany's social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe." You see, he "feels impelled" to write -- feels, presumably, that he has something new to say -- and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases ( lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation ) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned , which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. There is a long list of flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the job; and it should also be possible to laugh the not un- formation out of existence, to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor points. The defense of the English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does not imply.

To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a "good prose style." On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When yo think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. 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 and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to mak on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us 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 say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, 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. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. 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. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.

1946