{"id":947,"date":"2011-10-02T17:41:26","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T16:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=947"},"modified":"2011-10-02T17:41:26","modified_gmt":"2011-10-02T16:41:26","slug":"the-never-ending-war-against-cliche-and-jargon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2011\/10\/02\/the-never-ending-war-against-cliche-and-jargon\/","title":{"rendered":"The never-ending war against clich\u00e9 and jargon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I usually read Robert Fisk for other reasons, but his recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/opinion\/commentators\/fisk\/robert-fisk-the-neverending-war-against-clich233-and-jargon-2364021.html\">article<\/a> on jargon and clich\u00e9 caught my eye. \u00a0 Something to read, perhaps, alongside George Orwell's writing rules:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.<\/p>\n<p>2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.<\/p>\n<p>3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.<\/p>\n<p>4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.<\/p>\n<p>5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.<\/p>\n<p>6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I should say that whenever I look at these, I flinch, and tell myself: remember them more often! \u00a0But then, I remember Orwell also said this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A writer can do very little with words in their primary meanings. \u00a0He gets his effect if at all by using words in a tricky roundabout way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>... and I steady myself again. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.orwell.ru\/library\/essays\/politics\/english\/e_polit\">Here<\/a> is Orwell's Politics and the English Language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I usually read Robert Fisk for other reasons, but his recent article on jargon and clich\u00e9 caught my eye. \u00a0 Something to read, perhaps, alongside George Orwell's writing rules: 1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}