I. Example Essays Used
A. Professor Harold Laski’s Freedom of Expression
B. Professor Lancelot Hogben’s Interglossa
C. Essay on Psychology in Politics
D. Essay in a Communist Pamphlet
E. A Letter in Tribune
II. Respective Errors in Sample Essays
A. uses 5 negatives in 53 words, causing vagueness
B. wrong metaphors
C. meaningless essay
D. good thought, poor choice of words and phrases
E. parted company of words and meanings
III. Tricks of Political Language
A. Dying Metaphors
1. have become regular words
2. no vividness
B. Operators on Verbal False Limbs
1. illusion of symmetry
2. multiple words have same meaning as one word
C. Pretentious Diction
1. complicated foreign words used instead of simple English words
2. very vague
D. Meaningless Words
1. lost meaning of words
2. people’s private definitions
IV. Questions Writers Ask Themselves
A. What am I trying to say?
B. What words will express it?
C. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
D. Is the image fresh enough to have an effect?
E. Could I make it shorter?
F. Have I said anything avoidably ugly?
V. Rules and Remedies
A. no commonly seen similes and metaphors
B. shorter words
C. cut unnecessary words
D. be active, not passive
E. everyday words
F. bad sentence, time to break the rules
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