Saturday, June 28, 2003
(Via scribble, scribble, scribble)
Orwell asserted six axioms for writing:
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 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.
He also wrote, “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. 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…into the dustbin where it belongs.” That’s a fight worth fighting.
* * * * * * * * * * *
This just in dept.
A reader miffed with a writer's music review (if it were mine, I'd say so) enclosed a link as a possible home-study aid together with the definition for "explication". As the techniques of literary criticism can lend themselves to music criticism, this is one to explore:
(Just exchange the phrase "close reading" for "close listening", and hopefully there will be some "deep writing". Some critical jargon does not translate straight across; the concept of "texture" is used a bit differently in music criticism. Still, a valid reminder of how to go about things sometimes.)
¶ 6/28/2003 03:19:00 PM
Orwell asserted six axioms for writing:
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 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.
He also wrote, “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. 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…into the dustbin where it belongs.” That’s a fight worth fighting.
* * * * * * * * * * *
This just in dept.
A reader miffed with a writer's music review (if it were mine, I'd say so) enclosed a link as a possible home-study aid together with the definition for "explication". As the techniques of literary criticism can lend themselves to music criticism, this is one to explore:
(Just exchange the phrase "close reading" for "close listening", and hopefully there will be some "deep writing". Some critical jargon does not translate straight across; the concept of "texture" is used a bit differently in music criticism. Still, a valid reminder of how to go about things sometimes.)
¶ 6/28/2003 03:19:00 PM
