The Evolution of Modern English
English is a language that is constantly evolving and changing with the times. According to George Orwell, this evolution of the English language is full of bad habits which are spread by imitation and which are leading to the general collapse of English. This bad English is caused by various mental vices which lead to bad writing that is vague that and lacks precision. These mental vices include the use of dying metaphors, pretentious diction, and meaningless words. The combination of these mental vices give Modern English a certain staleness of imagery and lack of clarity. While a good metaphor assists an author by evoking a visual image in the reader, "dying"metaphors that are too commonly used can lose their vividness. For example, in an article for the Ottawa Citizen, Dan Leeth described the landscape of the Grand Canyon as vast emptiness", a metaphor that has lost it's effect on the reader due to the fact that it is used too frequently in Modern English. Another way that a metaphor can lose it's effect on the reader is
The use of pretentious diction is probably the most prevalent mental vice used in writings today. Author feel the need to dress up simple statements with unnecessary words to make their sentences appear more intelligent. " The deserted house of worship now serves as a memorial to futile efforts." The author of this work used pretentious words such a "futile" in an attempt to dress up his sentence, but end up increasing the vagueness of his work. Another example of pretentious diction is when large, useless words are used in sentences where it would be advantageous to use shorter more direct ones. "Collectively, unions are outmoded organizations, more coercive and irrational than the corporate bosses they allegedly protect workers from." Some writers even string series of these obscure words together to make their sentences appear more profound. This fact is illustrated a sentence written by Jamie Portman that contained words like "deft direction" and "performers cavort". Instead of using these words, the authors could use words th
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Approximate Word count = 698
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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