Orwell suggests six rules in his essay
Politics and the English Language:
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
What about beauty in writing? You've heard about subtlety in languages like French where certain thoughts are expressed in a word that isn't possible to translate to English. News reporting and research benefits from economy of words. Do you agree that beautiful prose is sometimes in order?
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