Making simple expressions dangerous

Even if "Politics and the English Language" seems, at certain points, dated or excessive, it remains as useful and as relevant today as it must have seemed when it was written. The dangers that George Orwell was warning his readers against -- the ways in which the language of politics can be muddied and distorted in order to make the average, literate citizen incapable of thinking clearly -- are no less (and perhaps more) threatening than they were in Orwell's day.

By Francine Prose

November 4, 2007