[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-411180-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-411180-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","politics-and-the-english-language-five-specimens-five-passages-analysis","Politics and the English Language - Five specimens - five passages analysis","","Examining the state of modern English, George Orwell argues that political decline and linguistic decay reinforce each other. He explains how careless or conventional language both reflects and enables foolish thinking, stressing that bad habits in writing can be revised through deliberate effort. The essay then introduces five representative passages to illustrate recurring “mental vices,” focusing on staleness of imagery and lack of precision in political prose.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/","Literature",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/politics-and-the-english-language-five-specimens-five-passages-analysis/411180/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/politics-and-the-english-language-five-specimens-five-passages-analysis/411180.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Chumphorn","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-31","2026-09-28",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",6,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"Why does Orwell connect language decline with politics?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"He argues that linguistic decay has political and economic causes and can intensify itself, making a cycle where poor thinking becomes easier through sloppy language.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"What does Orwell mean by the fight against “bad English”?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It is not frivolous; he claims that avoiding bad habits allows clearer thinking, which is a necessary first step toward political renewal.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What two main faults does Orwell identify across the five passages?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"They share staleness of imagery and lack of precision, where writers either cannot express their meaning or end up saying something else.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},411180,1791361811,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,91,95,100,104,109,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":96,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":105,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":26,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},2336475401981,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/22000c94efd8d5204d?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1786935347598174694","Politics and the English Language  \nGeorge Orwell  \n1946  \nMost 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.  \nNow, 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 soon 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  \nbecome clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.  \nThese 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:  \n1. 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)  \n2. 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.  \nProfessor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia)  \n3. 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?  \nEssay on psychology in Politics (New York)  \n4. 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 dest","cbCaiu8EU9FzwtWu","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiu8EU9FzwtWu","pdf",157483,14,"English","# The state of modern English\n## Political and economic causes of language decay\n# The reversibility of the decline\n## Fighting bad English\n# Five specimens of bad writing\n## Staleness of imagery and lack of precision","[{\"question\":\"Why does Orwell connect language decline with politics?\",\"answer\":\"He argues that linguistic decay has political and economic causes and can intensify itself, making a cycle where poor thinking becomes easier through sloppy language.\"},{\"question\":\"What does Orwell mean by the fight against “bad English”?\",\"answer\":\"It is not frivolous; he claims that avoiding bad habits allows clearer thinking, which is a necessary first step toward political renewal.\"},{\"question\":\"What two main faults does Orwell identify across the five passages?\",\"answer\":\"They share staleness of imagery and lack of precision, where writers either cannot express their meaning or end up saying something else.\"}]","Politics and the English Language - Five specimens - five passages analysis | PDF",1790587717,22]