Animal Farm Essay

The Concept of Bad English

In George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language”, he talks about how bad English was at the time and how it refers to politics. He says that bad English is a problem but not something we can really solve. People are always going to have bad English because they may not be thinking at the time or did not pass an English class. One interesting thing Orwell points out is that “underneath this lies the half- conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we can shape for our own purposes.” This quote sounded interesting to me because it rather explains the whole idea of how incorrect grammar is used. Language is a natural growth but we do not always use it properly.

The other main points of Orwell’s essay are that bad language has political and economic causes, which he must explain later but does not introduce in his first two paragraphs. He is probably saying that bad language affects those who are in politics and economics because their speeches and written work needs to be clear to the audience. Orwell includes an example that relates to the effect of bad English in the second paragraph. He says, “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.” What Orwell might be saying is that people use incorrect grammar because they do not think about the smart thing to say. If they continue to use incorrect grammar, then they will not succeed in writing nor would people take them seriously.

Some of the stuff that Orwell writes in his essay I agree with and then some of it I question. According to Orwell, the main reason why we have incorrect grammar is that “our thoughts are foolish, but slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” I do agree that our thoughts can be ‘foolish’. This is because we do not normally think about what we are saying before we say it. There have been times where I, or people around me, have said things like “She been did…She been had… I is…” Usually the reason why this happens is because I do not really think about what I am saying- I am more focused on expressing my feelings or trying to get my point across. The things I have to question are his ways of that thinking clearly and politics go together. He does not really explain in these two paragraphs, but he has strong points and interesting data on English.