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The George Orwell Living Metaphor Award
Jan. 14th, 2005 12:16 amGeorge Orwell gets a bad rap.
Because of 1984, his name has become associated with Newspeak, the language of bureaucratic tyranny and reality-avoidance. The word "Orwellian" conjures up all of the dark features of IngSoc and the Party from 1984, Orwell’s name (actually a pen name, he was born Eric Blair) fusing with the evil he warned us of like Victor Frankenstein’s last name becoming the name of his monster in the minds of people who’ve never read the book.
Orwell wrote a fantastic short essay on political writing, one I’ve linked to several times: “Politics and the English Language”. (That version’s better formatted than the one I linked to earlier.) Anyone who blogs on matters of politics or current affairs, or who writes letters to newspaper editorial sections, ought to read it. It’s got good advice for anyone who writes anything more public than a shopping list, but it’s especially aimed at political writers.
One characteristic of bad writing that Orwell identifies is the use of dying metaphors, “a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” He writes:
To draw attention to the use of fresh metaphors, I’m awarding the newly-minted George Orwell Living Metaphor Award to James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, who’s been blogging since September of last year. Here he is...
...on Time naming Bush Man of the Year:
On Tucker Carlson’s performance on TV:
...on meeting Bernard Kerik:
...on Condoleeza Rice replacing Colin Powell as Secretary of State:
...on the presidential debates:
Because of 1984, his name has become associated with Newspeak, the language of bureaucratic tyranny and reality-avoidance. The word "Orwellian" conjures up all of the dark features of IngSoc and the Party from 1984, Orwell’s name (actually a pen name, he was born Eric Blair) fusing with the evil he warned us of like Victor Frankenstein’s last name becoming the name of his monster in the minds of people who’ve never read the book.
Orwell wrote a fantastic short essay on political writing, one I’ve linked to several times: “Politics and the English Language”. (That version’s better formatted than the one I linked to earlier.) Anyone who blogs on matters of politics or current affairs, or who writes letters to newspaper editorial sections, ought to read it. It’s got good advice for anyone who writes anything more public than a shopping list, but it’s especially aimed at political writers.
One characteristic of bad writing that Orwell identifies is the use of dying metaphors, “a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” He writes:
By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash — as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot — it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking.
To draw attention to the use of fresh metaphors, I’m awarding the newly-minted George Orwell Living Metaphor Award to James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, who’s been blogging since September of last year. Here he is...
...on Time naming Bush Man of the Year:
From beginning to end, the magazine behaves like a man who knocks himself out making an extravagant six-course candlelit dinner for a blow-up doll, in an effort to convince himself he's really in love.
On Tucker Carlson’s performance on TV:
flighty, stammering, laughing at his own lame quips and then repeating them as if repetition makes them even swiftier, waving his hands around as if trying to throw them away
...on meeting Bernard Kerik:
A hard spherical object, Kerik is physically formidable, not someone you'd want to skirmish with over the last sticky bun on the tray. [...]
I'm glad the press is having a dance party with this, because God knows the Democrats are frozen at the steering wheel. I just saw a segment on MSNBC (which has been all over the Kerik story today, bless Rick Kaplan's cyborg heart) pitting a Republican strategist against a Democratic one, and the Democratic spokesman--who goes by the name of Michael Brown--seemed to have washed down his weeny pills with warm Ovaltine.
...on Condoleeza Rice replacing Colin Powell as Secretary of State:
Rice's face is the game face of the Bushies, bony with Unwavering Resolve, eyes fanatical, mouth tensed. She has shown herself to be not a listener but a dictation machine on playback.
...on the presidential debates:
I don't understand why candidates allow themselves to be strait-jacketed by debate formats that force them to perform Houdini acts to show the slightest animation or spontaneity and penalize any uncorseted expression of passion or emotion.