get me an aspirin.

This is my third time--at least--reading this piece by Orwell. And every time I read it, I cannot help but agree with him more emphatically than the last (about most writers today, that is). Orwell wins me over every time I read this piece because, after reading those examples of pretentious and plain bad writing, I never want to write pretentiously or be unclear again. In fact, the most persuasive element of Orwell's piece is his portrayal of bad writers and their literary laziness. I don't want to be one of those writers who use metaphors "without knowledge of their meaning" and mix "incompatible metaphors," obviously not interested in what I'm saying. Orwell makes me question my writing.

Do I save myself the trouble of picking out appropriate words just to "pad a sentence with extra syllables [to] give it an appearance of symmetry?"

Am I a pretentious writer, using words I don't really know how to use?

Lord, I hope not. This is why I do my best to stick to his rules (my old politics professor actually told us that if we didn't stick to Orwell's six rules in our term papers, he would personally find us and hand us back our D-grade papers).

One point Orwell makes (and I think this is the most important point of the piece) is that if "thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Lazy writing indicates lazy thinkers. I don't want to be a lazy thinker, nor do I want my political leaders to be lazy thinkers. But, as Orwell said, writing with ready-made phrases and big words is tempting because it is can be done without truly thinking yet still sound intelligent. He says (I particularly enjoyed this) that using this prepackaged style of writing is a "continuous temptation" for writers--it is like having "a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow." Why go through the headache of thinking when you can numb it out with cliche and pretension? How ingenious.