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His essays Shooting An Elephant and Politics and the English Language have always stuck with me. We have the 4 volume collection in the family. It's at an arm's distance right now.

I read Animal Farm when I was 12 and 1984 a few years later. And I've re-read them a few times since. In college, I read Down and Out. Traveling through Europe I read Homage to Catalonia.

Orwell is my favorite writer and 1984 is my favorite book.




"Politics and the English Language" is unquestionably one of Orwell's most important essays. Kind of amazing that this post overlooks it.


I loved it so much that I once tried to do a 'modern update' of it, with headers and bullet points and so on. It's meant to be a supplement to the original essay, not a replacement: http://visakanv.com/blog/politics-and-the-english-language


I would be willing to bet money that Orwell would have hated bullet points. Also, PowerPoint.


I didn't remove anything that he said; I just presented his multiple lists of examples in a easier-to-read format. The original essay probably was formatted a particular way on the printed page, but it's turned into a tedious wall of text in the orwell.ru version.

I have a link to the predecessor in opening; so you can open both copies in separate tabs and compare them for yourself.


The post quotes it, but does not mention it.




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