On "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell

      I found this essay to be extremely dated and hard to understand, yet there were a few things in it that we could all take with us to improve our writing. 

      For one he talks about eliminating overused phrases and idioms and mocks people for using such phrases when they do not actually know what each individual word means or where the idiom came from. He then went onto illustrate using examples, how popular idioms are less descriptive because they mold something into a specific category due to the writer's laziness. Whereas if the writer were to take time to describe the object in it's uniqueness, the description would be much more apt.

     Another thing he talks about is avoiding the passive voice. This is something that was no doubt stressed to us in AP literature last year and Orwell does a good job of describing why the passive voice is misleading.

      Finally Orwell talks about "pretentious diction" (a phrase that perfectly describes his point) or words that use assumptions or slanted views of a particular subject or false authority.

      In summary, Orwell urges writers to be specific, be concrete, write exactly what they mean and avoid staying confined to the societal norms of writing.