Editing George Orwell (section)

===Influence on language and writing===
In his essay "[[Politics and the English Language]]" (1946), Orwell wrote about the importance of precise and clear language, arguing that vague writing can be used as a powerful tool of political manipulation. In that essay, Orwell provides six rules for writers:
{{blockquote|
# 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.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm|first = George |last = Orwell |title = Politics and the English Language |date = April 1946 |publisher = [[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]] |work = mtholyoke.edu |access-date = 15 July 2010|url-status = dead|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100715144246/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm |archive-date = 15 July 2010 |df = dmy}}</ref>}}

Orwell worked as a journalist at ''[[The Observer]]'' for seven years, and its editor [[David Astor]] gave a copy of this celebrated essay to every new recruit.<ref name="Good journalism"/> In 2003, the literary editor at the newspaper [[Robert McCrum]] wrote, "Even now, it is quoted in our style book".<ref name="Good journalism">{{cite news |title=George Orwell and the eternal truths of good journalism |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/09/georgeorwell |access-date=17 July 2021 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> The journalist [[Jonathan Heawood]] noted: "Orwell's criticism of slovenly language is still taken very seriously."<ref name="Good journalism"/>

Andrew N. Rubin argues that "Orwell claimed that we should be attentive to how the use of language has limited our capacity for critical thought just as we should be equally concerned with the ways in which dominant modes of thinking have reshaped the very language that we use."<ref>{{cite web|last=Rubin|first=Andrew N|url=http://outsidethewhale.com/2011/10/04/70/|title=The Rhetoric of Perpetual War|access-date=11 October 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120123221507/http://outsidethewhale.com/2011/10/04/70/|archive-date=23 January 2012}}</ref>

The adjective "[[Orwellian]]" connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth and manipulation of the past. In ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', Orwell described a totalitarian government that controlled thought by controlling language, making certain ideas literally unthinkable. Several words and phrases from ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' have entered popular language. "[[Newspeak]]" is a simplified and obfuscatory language designed to make independent thought impossible. "[[Doublethink]]" means holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. The "[[Thought Police]]" are those who suppress all dissenting opinion. "[[Prolefeed]]" is homogenised, manufactured superficial literature, film and music used to control and indoctrinate the populace through docility. "[[Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Big Brother]]" is a supreme dictator who watches everyone. Other [[neologism]]s from the novel include, "[[Two Minutes Hate]]", "[[Room 101]]", "[[memory hole]]", "[[wikt:unperson|unperson]]", and "[[thoughtcrime]]",<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> as well as providing direct inspiration for the neologism "[[groupthink]]".

Orwell may have been the first to use the term "[[cold war (general term)|cold war]]" in his essay, "You and the Atom Bomb", published in ''Tribune'' on 19 October 1945. He wrote:
{{blockquote|"We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. [[James Burnham]]'s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—this is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a State which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of 'cold war' with its neighbours."<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://orwell.ru/library/articles/ABomb/english/e_abomb.html
|first=George|last=Orwell
|title=You and the Atom Bomb
|publisher=[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]
|date=19 October 1945
|access-date=15 July 2010
}}</ref>}}

In 1965 the Marxist cultural studies critic [[Raymond Williams]] (the author of ''[[Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society|Keywords]]'') considered Orwell's concept of freedom and his writings in a review of books by [[Christopher Caudwell]], who unlike Orwell (the better known writer) did not survive the Spanish Civil War. Williams cautions the reader "not to rest in Orwell" for "he engages too easily with our intellectual and emotional habits... can reinforce a prejudice, delay recognition of a muddle, betray us emotionally at a point of new growth..."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Raymond |date=18 February 1965 |title=A young man's papers |work=Manchester Guardian}}</ref>