In "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell provides six rules for writers:-
* Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
* Never use a long word where a short one will do.
* If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
* Never use the passive voice where you can use the active.
* Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
* Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
And for those of us who didn't know, including me, 'George Orwell' was the pen name used by Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950, author of (among others) 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' and 'Animal Farm'.
These are a few other thoughts from Old George, and from the vantage point of sixty years later, I'd have to say "Things haven't changed much... certainly not as much as we'd hoped."
2 comments:
From: Eric Shackle, 8 Kourung St., Ettalong 2257, New South Wales, Australia. Tel 612-4342-3280
Hi Ray. Greetings from Sydney, Australia.
You may like to read a story about other World's Oldest Bloggers I wrote for the South Korean citizen reporters' online journal OhmyNewsInternational: http://tinyurl.com/5brv3d
Could you please tell me your date of birth?
I enjoy reading your blog, and commend George Orwell's rules to all bloggers aged 10 to 101.
Best wishes, Eric.
[Eric Shackle is a retired Sydney journalist whose hobby is searching the Internet and writing about it. He is author of "Life Begins at 80 on the Internet," http://tinyurl.com/58p9cv and is a featured writer for OhmyNewsInternational, http://tinyurl.com/6jny63. He also writes a column for senior citizen webzines in US, UK, Canada, South Africa and Australia, and is copy editor of Anu Garg's Seattle-based A Word A Day newsletter, http://wordsmith.org/awad/ which is e-mailed five days a week to more than 600,000 wordlovers in 200 countries.]
Hi, Eric...
Thanks for your comments, and the information. I'm not really anywhere near the 'oldest living blogger'. That was just a convenient nickname I chose when I got started, because I figured it might grab a few eyeballs. I was right - a lady who writes for the Associated Press in Chicago saw one of my blurbs, and then included mention of me in an article she wrote, which later got circulated in several big U.S. papers, including 'USA Today'. So after that, I kept on using that 'handle' even though I've got some static about it. I'm just 75, so you know why. But I've never pretended to be the oldest blogger.
And periodically, I need to explain all this. :)
I'm glad you enjoy my efforts, and
I appreciate your saying so.
Best regards to you.
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