Critiquing an Essay with George Orwell’s six rules In Orwell’s essay he states that it is easy to slip into the bad writing that people have become accustomed to. It is difficult to go against the temptation of using the easy way out with meaningless words or hackneyed phrases that make things easier and require less thought. Orwell concludes that the progressive decline of the English language is reversible and he offers six rules which can help avoid most of the errors in poor writing. In Brenda Chow’s essay The Writer at Work, she breaks many of the six rules that Orwell wrote to avoid the continuation of our language decline. Chow breaks the following 3 rules: never use a long word when a short one will do, never use a simile, metaphor, or other figure of speech which you are seeing in print, and never use a foreign phrase, a scientific or jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
The Disdain of Total Equality Total equality may seem fair and justifiable in the eyes of some people, but in many cases it turns out to be little more than a form of oppression, in which a group of people limit the abilities of others. Throughout the story Vonnegut speaks of this necessity for equality and the means that the government goes to achieve it by using devices called ‘handicaps’; one example of this is George’s earpiece, “A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.” Vonnegut’s simile here creates a sort of loud diction, which expresses the sheer discomfort invoked by these restraints on the person wearing them. The governing body in this society views this as the solution to a problem, one that happens to be relatively impossible to solve, this is how Vonnegut incorporates satire into his story. He is poking fun at the age old concept of ‘equality,’ one that has inspired wars and movements alike; he accomplishes this by creating a system to make everyone equal, a system that happens to be just as stupid as the idea of ‘total equality.’ Under this system equality is achieved, but it is at the cost of individual freedom and a society full of stupid people, this in-turn creates the situational irony found in the story.
Journal 14-Famous Lincoln Civil War Speech & “Sivilizing Huck Finn” While I was reading Sutton’s article, I remembered Mrs. Phillips saying how that the regular’s English class just could not grasp that Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is in fact not racist. Apparently Sutton had not reached the sophomore honors English class level yet either, which is probably not the best, seeing he is a book critic and has the ability to edit, or in my terms ‘butcher’, books to his liking. If he had seen Twain’s purpose-to make the book as close to real life and society as possible to really emphasize the satire traits, Sutton might not have been so disgusted. It actually annoys me that he would change the whole book, and all of its
His undertone of sarcasm is present in this comparison, but not yet blatantly obvious as it is in lines 20-26, “In the newspapers…without hooting.” Here the author states that only the population can listen to this proposal by the president without laughing. This and other such uses of sarcasm are very effective in his persuasive
The content in the work is imperative to the messages it communicates. “Take the N-word out of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and is it still ‘Huckleberry Finn’? Probably not, after all it is a book narrated in Huck’s voice.” writes journalist Delia Lloyd about the subject. The individual ideas in the book can’t be as easily conveyed in ‘politically correct’ language. When Huck says “Jim had an uncommon level head for a nigger” the message he is conveying to the reader will be distorted if you alter what Twain originally wrote; the sentiment will not have been as accurately communicated.
By using rhetorical questions the writer intends to get the reader to re think there opinion, and consider whether or not the writes contention is true or not. It positions the reader to feel slightly foolish if they don’t agree, since the rhetorical question has such an obvious answer. Sarcastic comments like “I can’t see any violence in a queue like that” plays on the reader’s sense of understanding. This language is used to evoke the audience to come to an agreement with the writer. Throughout the article, Brown mainly uses sarcastic language and rhetorical questions which appeal to the younger
While it is understandable that historians may be accustomed to the more lengthy pieces, it is irritating to the general public when the only truly informative books tend to put them to sleep within the first hundred pages. Truly, there is a possibility that this is such a book in spite of the fascinations encased in this subject matter; the book is dry, devoid of many pertinent facts by the average individual. The Godless Constitution is generally informative, contains much of the nation’s history and would be a good read for the average history buff. As a whole, this book is persuasive. Although not extremely appealing, it contains worthwhile information surrounding the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the nation’s history.
Nonstandard diction refers to expressions that are not considered legitimate words according to the rules of Standard English usage. Nonstandard diction includes "ain't," "theirselves," "hisself," "anyways," "alot" (the accepted version is "a lot"), and "alright" (the accepted version is "all right"). Most good dictionaries will identify such expressions with the word "Nonstandard." ( When you refer to information contained in Joe’s book (and everyone is required to do this) but have no reference, your essay is not theoretically sophisticated. You must have references even if you do not directly quote.
However, in Fahrenheit 451 Beatty describes conformity as a positive aspect of society – he argues that conformity in behavior prevents violence and jealousy by restricting the gifted and talented people from their ability to excel, which is good in a way because then the others won‘t feel bad. However, the real problem in the situation Beatty describes is not the exceptionally bright child (when he is trying to show Montag the uselessness of books) but the group of people of those who submit to it. Unfortunately, this very situation occurs repeatedly in our society today. People who choose not to conform may be persecuted by the groups of people who submit into censorship, and through that act of persecution the people reinforce conformity of
Nicole Brouwer 2nd hour Honors English Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover “The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.” -Arthur Schopenhauer Stereotyping, superstitions, and being prejudice are all components that lead to misjudging others. Many myths have been associated with different ethnic groups, and it leads to ethnic segregation. An understanding about other cultures may help decrease the negativity and overcomes prejudice. What does being prejudice mean? Why do societies leap at the chance to judge others?