Introduction
Political jargon is still one of the most confusing languages spoken. George Orwell’s observaions are just as true today as they were when he wrote the book “Politics and the English language’.
However, because these mistakes are based on context, then political language today has also varied. All the basic deviations exist; it is simply execution that has changed.
Instances of Orwell’s complaints in today’s political language
One of the four issues Orwell talks about is the use of meaningless words. Modern writing is now characterized by words which add little to the overall meaning intended.
These are worsened by the piecing together of meaningless words to form vague paragraphs and phrases. Orwell (13) uses a well known verse from the bible to illustrate this argument.
He affirms that while the bible would state that “the race is not to the swift … nor to the strong… but time happeneth to all” (Orwell, 10), modern writers would say this: “contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity”(Orwell, 10).
He criticizes this modern translation because it is not arresting enough, it also dilutes the writer’s original meaning and lacks in concreteness. In fact, Orwell’s biggest objection to modern political writing is that it lacks images. Most writers are fond of using several long and unnecessary phrases.
These mistakes are still prevalent in today’s political scene. In fact, the 2008 political campaigns were full of them. When presidential candidate John McCain attended a political rally at Moon Township in Western Pennsylvania, this is what he said
“You know, I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama’s supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn’t agree with them more.
I couldn’t disagree with you. I couldn’t agree with you more than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most god-loving, most, most patriotic part of America, and this is a great part of the country” (Diakides, 15).
Senator McCain was guilty of the same misdeeds discussed in Orwell’s book. First, he contradicts himself by saying that he agrees with his opponents but then realizes the mistake he has made and corrects it in the second sentence by cliaming that he agrees with the voters.
He then affirms this in a third sentence by repeating what he said in the first sentence that he could not agree more with the audience. He did what many writers and speakers in the political environment tend to do; he chocked himself with his own words.
McCain landed himself in trouble because he used too many negatives in this quote. Instead of simply saying that he agrees with the Western Pennsylvanians, he negated his main verb by comparing it with something else but because he had not thought through that comparison then he ended up contradicting himself.
After going around in circles, the speaker then repeats the same phrase that he started with, in reference to the audience and not his opponents. Orwell (11) explains that most politicians have a tendency of piecing together meaningless words as phrases because it takes less time and effort to think about them.
The words “couldn’t agree with you more” could simply be substituted with “I agree with you”. Orwell (13) explains that this kind of English is particularly appealing to politicians because it is easier and quicker. One does not have to think about complementary words because they are already preset in these meaningless phrases.
The presidential hopeful was probably trying to think of a clever way of getting a negative message across without sounding so aggressive. These instances of clumsiness hurt McCain’s campaign as the public had satirized him for it.
He would have prevented all that by thinking about what he wanted to say, gathering the right words, piecing them up in the shortest way and avoiding as much “ugliness” in his speech as possible.
Another issue that George Orwell discusses in his book is the use of operators or verbal false limbs. Here, speakers replace simple nouns and verbs with phrases made of adjectives and nouns.
For example, instead of using the word ‘involved’ a politician would rather say ‘play a leading part in’. Furthermore, these kinds of speeches tend to avoid use of the un- formation and instead replace them with endings such as –ize. In the 2008 political campaign, another political leader committed the same sin.
Sara Palin was speaking at a fundraiser in Greensoboro and this is what she said:
“We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C…. We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.” (Eilperin, 7)
In the speech, Palin adds what Orwell calls a false limb to the noun America when she calls the people of Greensoboro ‘pro-American’. This term caused a lot of debate among opponents and supporters because they did not agree with her intended meaning in the sentence.
By calling other towns pro-American, the VP candidate was trying to say that certain parts in America were not American. In other words, to her, Washington lacked those crucial traits that she was talking about in her campaign. Palin seemed to have been in a tight spot; she was trying to look for the right words to thank her hosts but appears to have messed that up.
Readers and viewers of the speech could have interpreted that false limb in a number of ways; some would have taken on racist stances in that those small towns have many majorities. Others may have assumed that small townspeople had better work ethic or were more productive than larger cities.
She used a noun (America) in the place of a more descriptive word so that she could avoid taking responsibility for her utterancesions. Orwell (13) explains that politicians spoil the English language because they are insincere.
He affirms that when one’s intended and stated aims are different then one is likely to cling to these long and ambiguous terms.
Palin’s intentions may have been racial so she use the false limb in order to avoid revealing them. Indeed, she revealed the fact that politics is an aspect that is full of maneuvers and evasions when contentions and disagreements abound (Nunberg, 5).
The third mistake that Orwell identifies in his writing is the use of dying metaphors. Writers sometimes use words that do not stir up readers in any way; a possible sign that they do not care about the information they are conveying.
Some of them may not fully understand the meaning of those metaphors while others may have confused meanings by twisting the metaphor around. In these circumstances, a writer may pervert it. Orwell (12) gives the example of the phrase ‘hammer and anvil’.
He explains that certain writers may give the implication that the anvil was worse off than the hammer yet this is not true. Orwell believes that if these writers simply thought through their utterances then this scenario would not arise.
A case of such distortions occurred during the October campaign when a reporter was writing about Obama’s half aunt. The title of the report was “The November Surprise?”.
He revealed that the then Presidential candidate’s aunt was illegal. The immigration department denied her asylum so she had been using public housing illegally.
The writer believed that the information had been leaked to the public by someone in the Republican campaign since it is illegal to reveal information about someone’s legal status when the case was still unresolved.
Furthermore, Benen (6) believed that this information had the capacity to influence presidential election hence his title “November surprise”. He even cliamed that when one voted for Obama then one would expect more of the same in the subsequent four years; an indication that the author himself hoped the public would be influenced by that new revelation.
However, if one examines the context and use of this phrase then one would realize that the author has actually perverted the metaphor. In the American political scene, people use the term October surprise to describe news events that have the ability to modify outcomes in elections in the coming month.
October was the month chosen because this is the month before November when national elections take place. It started in 1972 when presidential candidate Richard Nixon announced, just twelve days prior to the national election, that peace was at hand in Vietnam (Kissinger, 13).
This came at a perfect time because Nixon had not delivered on his promise to put an end to the war during his ending four year term in office. His popularity (which was already high) increased tremendously in those two weeks and eventually contributed to his victory in the election.
The surprising news took place on 26 October and became a phrase associated with last minute news prior to the election.
When Benen (6) talked about Obama’s aunt, he was referring to surprising news that had the capacity to affect election outcomes. Although, these revelations sprung up in the month of November, the writer was not obligated to change the phrase ‘October surprise’ to ‘November surprise’.
The public is already aware of the meaning behind the term October surprise. Any last minute event that can influence presidential outcomes is understood as such.
Even if the revelation occurred just one day into the month of November, it would still have the same effect as one that occurred in the previous month and people would have understood it. He therefore distorted the metaphor because he wanted to capture every precise detail of the new information in his phrase. What matters is the principle; not the details.
Conclusion
As Orwell suggested, most politicians and political writers pervert language in order to hide their insincerity, their ignorance or their laziness. The three scenarios discussed in the essay reflect these underlying vices and are symptoms of a bigger problem in American politics.
In the first scenario, presidential candidate was guilty of laziness because he did not think of the right phrase to use. His VP candidate was guilty of insencirity because she meant one thing and said another.
Lastly, the Washington post author was ignorant because he did not think about the real meaning of the original phrase so he coined another one in order to make up for those differences as he went along.
Works Cited
Benen, Steve. “November surprise?” November, 1, 2008. Washington Monthly. Web.
Diakides, Tasha. Mccain: Western Pa. ‘most patriotic’ part of the country. October 21, 2008. CNN. Web.
Eilperin, Juliet. “To avoid being depressed, Palin skimps on campaign news.” October 17, 2008. Huffington post. Web.
Kissinger, Henry. Ending the Vietnam War: A history of America’s involvement in Extrication from the Vietnam War. NY: Simon Schuster, 2003. Print.
Orwell, George. Politics and the English language. NY: Horizon Publishers, 1946. Print.
Nunberg, Geoffrey. “If it’s ‘Orwellian’, it’s probably not”. June 25, 3003. New York Times. Web.