everything I need to know about editing I learned from George Orwell

[electricland]

You think I'm kidding? These extracts from Politics and the English Language (1946) are posted over my desk.

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.

(snip)

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?

(snip)

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 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.

Comments

[archaica.livejournal.com]

I have to confess I'm guilty of some unnecessary verbosity from time to time. But it's something I try to curtail :)

[raithen.livejournal.com]

That essay has always been a favorite of mine ;D. Clearly, we both have good taste!

[raithen.livejournal.com]

and Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. is the most basic rule any writer can follow, in my opinion.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

It's awesome. Particularly the Ecclesiastes translation -- all it needs is "synergy" somewhere and it's right up to date!

[stilldeepwater.livejournal.com]

Hey, I remember reading this in high school. It made a big impression on me. "Barbarous" - I've never yet managed to work that word into a sentence but I like it.

[blue71canoe.livejournal.com]

I'll have to pull it out and read it again as I haven't looked at it in a year or two, but I think of it often. I can't write a metaphor or simile without thinking of that essay. I sometimes even apologize to George in my head when I succumb and use a dead metaphor or a hackneyed expression. *Sorry George.*

Great post!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

you are CLEARLY not having the right kind of conversations! ;)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

hee. it is SO true, and I'm glad he wrote it, because they really are great rules of thumb.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Out! Out! Get thee hence! :P