What do you think?

George Orwell's essay from 1946

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 say anything outright barbarous.

Full text http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html

I agree with that... Those are the actually the rules a Technical Writer follows.

But if you are a creative writer the rules are exact opposite, why use 3 words when you can use 5?

shit i break most of those rules...but i think a fair amount of verbosity is good now and then because all you hear now is fuck, shit and cunt

Language is always changing and always will be. Stop trying to put boundaries on a language when it needs none.

I think the entire essay was meant to be ironic. In light of the previous knowledge I have of him from his other writings, I think he would have the exact opposite belief about writing.

This quote in particular seems to confirm my suspicions. That set of rules sounds more like a guideline to newspeak rather than the english he typically uses.

In response to the thread title, and not the actual content of any of the posts...

I blame the blacks, hillbillies and mexicans.

Exactly.

The main source for decline of the language would be the current pop culture trends of being an uneducated "gangsta". As long as that doesn't dominate, the language will be fine.

People have been complaining about the so-called "degeneration" of the English language for centuries. The fact is that, like many others have posted about, languages never degenerate. They are constantly evolving, much to the dismay of the "educated", who consider all this new-fangled slang a blemish on the "pure" tongue of our forefathers, little realizing that the lexicon they promote would have been considered new-fangled slang less than a century ago.

I think it's evolving more than declining.

As long as people write books or want to convey emotion they will use long words,keep words not needed in,and use scientific words because they're there for a reason.

Orwell was warning of a society where self expression is discouraged and words don't need to convey emotion. Society is moving towards that in some ways , and I think orwell is trying to guide us away from language control like that.

Best post of the thread.