Please can you rewrite all of Orwell's rules like this? They were my touchstone through my whole career in the public sector & as a researcher. Rewriting in your style is just what too many academic journals & ministerial press releases wanted. It says 'you have to be a clever insider like me to understand this' &/or 'I know what I'm talking about & if you don't get it it's bc you're dumb' #YeahRight
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Six Rules for Good Writing
‘From Politics & the English Language’, George Orwell, 1946
i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
America can accept this Supreme Court as legitimate and its rulings as the final word - or it can have true democracy and a functioning state. But not both.
A thread, outlining some key arguments from my latest Democracy Americana newsletter: