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.
I feel like I am guilty of thinking and believing this. When I read literature from the past, I often joke "what if we still talked like that."
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.
This essay was not at all what I thought it was going to be. I thought that he was just going the bash on how our language has become more informal and stupid, but I like this much better. He has said that because we don't understand what is being said and written--due to superfluous writing--we don't understand what is happening in politics. People can take their true and maybe malicious intentions and wrap them up in a nice little bow to make them sound presentable and agreeable. Be concise, be understandable.
Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism?
This is very interesting and goes with the thought above with the writer not wanting to say they agree with Russian totalitarianism
. Stuart Chase
Stuart Chase (March 8, 1888 – November 16, 1985) was an American economist,[1] social theorist, and writer.[2] This is from wikipedia
i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do. iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active. v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
These are great rules. Sometimes, I know I can cut out useless words, but choose not to because I have to meet a word count for an assignment.
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:
I wonder how much the themes and true messages of political writing are lost in the useless diction and structure of the writing
. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
I need to do a better job of making my writing more concise and supportive of my claim. These four sentences would be useful
. (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.
This relates to our discussion in class about using context clues to comprehend rather than actual understanding. While this is not about words, I think it still applies for whole sentences.
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
I am definitely guilty of doing all the things he talks about in this paragraph, but I don't think I am all to blame. In school my teachers would instruct the class to use vivid language and encourage us to make our writing fancier. While I am responsible for this, there are other factors in how I was taught that play into my habits as a writer. A lot of the times, my main ideas get lost in my ramblings. I would also add this thought to the "pretentious diction" paragraph
banal
so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.
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.
I had to google almost every tricky word in that little excerpt, I feel like this attests to Orwell's point that the English language is falling apart.
chauvinistic
chauvinistic means feeling or displaying aggressive or exaggerated patriotism
bourgeoise
from the dictionary "bourgeoise" (in Marxist contexts) means the capitalist class who own most of society's wealth and means of production. because this is from the communist pamphlet, it will be a Marxist context
proletarian
proletarian means working class
bestial
bestial means beast-like or savage
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
Even though this essay was written in 1946, I feel like it is still relevant today because both our language and politics are going downhill, so I am excited to read the rest of the essay to hear his thought on how to improve both.
Instead, he will assign less writing and less deep reading, because students’ work in that area is now difficult to assess. He will rely more on lectures and in-class, handwritten exams.
I don't know if this is a good idea. I can see the reasoning and frustration, but also at the same time lectures and in-class exams aren't exactly the best teaching strategies. My math teacher can lecture all he wants, but until I get the chance to try it out for myself, I won't know what i'm doing.
Faculty members who believed that AI posed a threat argued that its usage would undermine academic integrity, students’ critical thinking and writing skills, and creativity. Administrators who felt positively about AI focused on the need to prepare students for an AI-infused workplace, and said that it could spur new ways of thinking about problems and enhance learning through tools such as AI tutors.
I agree with both of these positions on the issue. I think that we first must learn to think critically and creatively, and then eventually when we are ready, AI should be introduced into education because it is an inevitable part of the future.
: ‘Well, now that we have all these tools that cut out some of these menial tasks that students have been accustomed to doing, students have to do more. They have to be required to do more of this higher-order, critical-thinking work that they can’t possibly do with AI.’
The problem with this statement is that because of AI and other negative factors, students don't know how to do those menial tasks, so cutting those out of the classroom is a problem because student may never learn how to do those basic things.
Her response: It’s her job to ensure students develop basic writing skills, and the noticeable uptick in AI use is impeding those efforts
This must be very frustrating for teachers who truly care about the students and their progression, but they are just trying to get through another class. I don't think I ever really thought about instructors in this scenario because I feel like I haven't ever really had a teacher truly passionate enough about me and my education. That has made it a bit harder for me to actually put my best effort in their classes because if they aren't invested in me then why should I be invested in their class. This is mostly for all of my high school classes, but could be applicable to higher education as well.
The lack of guidance and training is of particular concern, experts say, because AI will soon be everywhere.
I think there is a lack of training because there is a lack of knowledge. Generative AI is a relatively new thing, so its hard to train people about something we have little to no understanding of how to deal with.
A few didn’t know they had used generative AI because it’s embedded in so many other tools, like Grammarly.
This is interesting, I didn't know that Grammarly used generative AI. Now that I think about it it makes sense, but it is a bit unnerving that we could be using AI for assignments and not even know about it.