
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946) - Tomte
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
======
Houshalter
I love this essay. The whole essay is good, but I really like this paragraph:

>In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the
indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the
Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can
indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people
to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political
parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism,
question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are
bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the
cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is
called _pacification_. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent
trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called
_transfer of population or rectification of frontiers_. People are imprisoned
for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of
scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called _elimination of unreliable
elements_. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without
calling up mental pictures of them.

~~~
oxymoron
Stephen Pinker quotes that exact passage in _The Better Angels of our Nature_.
He rebuts:

> Orwell was wrong about one thing: that political euphemism was a phenomenon
> of his time. A century and a half before Orwell, Edmund Burke complained
> about the euphemisms emanating from revolutionary France:

> "The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies and
> circumlocutions for massacres and murder. They are never called by their
> common name. Massacre is sometimes called _agitation_, sometimes
> _effervescence_, sometimes _excess_; sometimes _too continued an excercise
> of a revokutionary power_.

~~~
judah
Some modern examples: capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion.

All involve killing a human being, but euphemisms are used to soften the
reality.

~~~
tomgp
whether abortion involves killing a human being is a matter of some debate

~~~
stinkytaco
As someone who believes in "choice", if that's the euphemistic term, I will
still argue that abortion absolutely involves killing a human being. That is a
thing which you once were, given the natural course of events, it would grow
into a living, breathing human like you or I. It's not like a sperm or an egg
which have no potential until positive action is taken, the deed is done and
that's becoming a human if we let it.

Which is Orwell's point, really. Abortion _is_ death. It also _is_ defensible.
But because "killing" is hard and difficult to defend, we come up with
euphemistic terms so we can stomach it.

~~~
judah
I appreciate your intellectual honesty. Abortion is death, taking a human
life.

The question is whether the justification suffices. For abortion, the
justification is: "Because the mother doesn't want the child, we allow her to
kill it in the womb."

~~~
johnmarius
The womb, her body, is her property. It's unfortunate that the child can't
survive outside of it, but that doesn't make throwing it out comparable to
Orwell's examples.

~~~
Houshalter
We don't generally allow people to murder during evictions, and infact often
allow several months for the tenant to move out.

------
Animats
Ah, Orwell. This was one of his pet peeves. He spent much of WWII translating
news into Basic English for transmission to British colonies. The evasions and
hyperbole of political speech had to be expressed in the plain and practical
words of Basic English. That's a political act. Newspeak in "1984" came from
that experience.

His list of worn-out metaphors understood by few, "ring the changes on, take
up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to
shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill,
fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan
song, hotbed" is still apt. "Ring the changes" is misused in today's South
China Morning Post.[1] My own favorite is "free rein", which is a horse term.
(One not used by riders today; riders say "loose rein".) It often appears
today as "free reign".

Today's metaphors come from popular culture rather than the classics, and age
faster. This may not be an improvement.

[1] [http://www.scmp.com/sport/rugby/article/2002459/mark-
coeberg...](http://www.scmp.com/sport/rugby/article/2002459/mark-coebergh-
rewarded-form-hong-kong-ring-changes-asia-rugby-u20-sevens)

~~~
chrisdone
Indeed, "melting pot" makes me think of think-tanks or a busy "scene" area, it
doesn't make me think of an actual melting pot, the words themselves doesn't
conjure up the mental image that they refer to, so the strength of the
metaphor is weak.

Reading Orwell's own writing in this article "like tea leaves caught in the
sink" it conjures up a fresh mental image.

One thing I discovered during 6 years of living in central Europe is that
speaking mostly with non-native English speakers leads to a necessary
elimination of metaphors; you have to use direct words. I can't say "he's
trying to pull the wool over your eyes" or "don't let the cat out of the bag"
or whatever, because nobody has any idea what I'm saying, and it's not worth
explaining. I considered it a kind of mental training, it taught me to speak
plainer English.

~~~
esquivalience
>the words themselves doesn't conjure up the mental image >that they refer to,
so the strength of the metaphor is >weak.

This is a fair summary of the problem with clichés. But as readers we share
responsibility for this: if we were to read less casually and more critically,
we would identify the metaphor on both levels, and increase our own
understanding and experience.

------
ajkjk
I consider David Foster Wallace's "Authority and the English Language" to be a
spiritual successor to this piece
([http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsag...](http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsage.pdf)).
I'd recommend it to anyone who likes Orwell's essay.

~~~
igravious
Absolutely. Would give this 10 upvotes if I could and would have said it
myself if you had already done so. Also very relevant is the essay "Ideology,
Power, and Linguistic Theory"[1] by linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum (2004). I
believe the spiritual predecessor of all of these to be in many ways
Schopenhauer's (1891) essay "On Style"[2] Both are short, readable, and
nutritious. :)

[1]
[https://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/MLA2004.pdf](https://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/MLA2004.pdf)

[2]
[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/lit/cha...](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/lit/chapter2.html)

------
chrisdone
The below example is stunning. I feel sick to recognize the second paragraph
(especially in academic writing), and I feel strong relief that the first
paragraph can exist.

> Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

> I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the
> battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men
> of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance
> happeneth to them all.

> Here it is in modern English:

> Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion
> that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be
> commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the
> unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

~~~
dTal
As a counterpoint, I didn't quite understand the point of the first paragraph,
until I read the second. And the second paragraph, while less poetic, is
clearer in meaning in that it makes a concrete statement that can be
evaluated, which in this case is good because it's clearly wrong. Success or
failure in competitive activities exhibits a _strong_ correlation with innate
ability, otherwise what would innate ability even mean? I don't see how I
could make an argument like that on the first paragraph; it's too waffly and
vague and grand.

~~~
waiquoo
I think you have a naive understanding of the theme in these paragraphs.
Competitive situations do NOT have a strong correlation with innate ability.
Outside factors will often have as much or more influence than innate ability
(practice beats talent, as the saying goes). I suppose it depends on which
'competitive situation' we are talking about. That is the point of this
comparison, though, saying 'competitive situation' leaves things overly vague.

To take a concrete example, 9/10 startups fail (or something like that, I'm
sure someone has the correct ratio). Does that mean that 9/10 founders are
innately unfit to found a company? It seems much more likely that success is a
combination of getting the right people working on the right project at the
right time in the right place and being noticed by the right people. Even the
well educated, connected, entrepreneurial founder might fail because of any
one of those (or other) factors.

The first paragraph explains this concept succinctly and beautifully. The fact
that the second does not convey this meaning while technically containing the
same information, is the point of this article.

------
charlesism
This essay has been on HN a few times before, but I'm upvoting this anyways.
It's one of the greatest essays ever written. It will change how you write,
and how you perceive the writing of others.

~~~
paloaltokid
My favorite history professor in college plugged this essay in all of his
courses. He often said it was one of the most important essays to read if you
want to understand why politicians and public figures speak the way they do.
It's one of those great essays that everyone should read at least once.

------
devishard
What's frustrating about Orwell's writing advice here is that it doesn't
really improve society unless everyone does it. If I write using Orwell's
rules and my political opponent doesn't, I'll likely lose.

If anything, I wish that the phenomenon Orwell is describing would be used by
the people on the "right" side more often--but people who are doing what they
think is right don't as often feel the need to obfuscate it for PR purposes.

Ultimately I think understanding the phenomenon Orwell describes is
fundamental. You should be able to read "Two died after a shooting incident
involving LAPD officers" and know to look further to discover that meant "LAPD
shot and killed two unarmed black men". But actually following Orwell's advice
on how to write puts you at a disadvantage. Playing by the rules when your
opponents aren't is a fool's game.

~~~
barisser
I don't think that is evident at all. Clear writing will resonate with the
reader far more than hackneyed, pretentious constructions.

Many of the best communicators in history successfully employed "simpler"
verbal constructions than those Orwell rails against.

~~~
devishard
> I don't think that is evident at all. Clear writing will resonate with the
> reader far more than hackneyed, pretentious constructions.

Then why are all the most popular news sources full of clickbait, inflammatory
headlines, and cliffhanger hooks?

> Many of the best communicators in history successfully employed "simpler"
> verbal constructions than those Orwell rails against.

History is written by historians, and historians are biased toward things that
interest them. Simpler verbal constructions might get written about more by an
educated historian, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were the most
influential in their time.

------
narrator
"Marxism and the Problem of Linguistics" (1950) by Stalin [1] is an
interesting read to go alongside this. You've got Stalin saying that we
shouldn't distort language so much so that it loses it's practical use in
everyday matters simply because it is inherited from pre-communist ideologies.
In a way he is saying that the slippery slope of language manipulation is
useful for political purposes, but should not be followed all the way down
into impracticality. This was a problem Stalin had as people were excessively
fanatical to the point of absurdity to avoid being purged, so he had to give
them the ability to limit their fanaticism by saying that some allowance for
practicality in the use of language was part of the Stalinist orthodoxy and
thus not "reactionary".

[1]
[https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950...](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950/jun/20.htm)

------
cafard
On the other hand, there is Samuel Johnson's observation in his Life of
Milton:

"No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations, and of kings, sink
into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them."

------
TheLarch
When I hear neologisms from the radical left or right this is the first thing
that comes to mind. I don't take it as a writing style guide, rather as a
guide to spotting tyranny.

The neologisms from FOX and social justice warriors are politics of language.

~~~
KingMob
You know Orwell himself was a fairly radical leftist, at least in his youth?
He fought in a Trotskyite group in the Spanish Civil War.

People read Animal Farm's denunciations of the founding of the USSR and
confuse his anti-Soviet stance with an anti-socialist stance. He was
disillusioned with the behavior of the Russian communists during the Spanish
Civil War, which really turned him against them.

(The anti-fascist coalition was broadly anarchist, with a smattering of
foreign, communist, socialist and other forces. Despite being <5% of the total
coalition, the Russian communist government refused to provide material aid
unless their forces were put in charge, which the coalition declined. Since
the western governments (Britain, France, US) refused to help at all, the
anti-fascist forces had no support, and were overwhelmed by Franco, ushering
in decades of fascism in Spain.)

~~~
TheLarch
Interesting, thank you. However I did not intend to condemn all radical
politics. Rather my point was that the promulgation of any political views by
foisting a sympathetic vocabulary onto the public is tyrannical. Are there any
political ideas that require a new vocabulary? I don't know.

~~~
canuckintime
> Rather my point was that the promulgation of any political views by foisting
> a sympathetic vocabulary onto the public is tyrannical.

but the examples you gave of political views were "Far Left" "Fox News"
"Social Justice Warriors" whereas George Orwell would be concerned about how
the seemingly staid mainstream's use of political language. 'smart bombs'
'neutralize target' 'pacification [of Vietnam]' etc are all vocabulary
promulgated by establishment politicians and mainstream newspapers and vastly
more dangerous than what "social justice warriors" try to foist.

~~~
TheLarch
You're right in that the mainstream is guilty as well. I see SJWs as
attempting to suppress free speech however, which I perceive as unambiguously
tyrannical.

~~~
popmystack
Do you not see a problem with your rhetoric? "SJW" is something Orwell would
take issue with, especially your use of it.

~~~
TheLarch
I'm not so sure. "Social justice" often tramples free speech.

------
adrianratnapala
I am enjoying the essay, to the extent that it makes C++ and its compile times
seem not so bad.

But how much of the badness is really unique to the English language, or to
the modern world?

My guess is that all times and places have wallowed in mushy rhetoric, and
always will. If we look back at Pericles or Cicero or Jefferson and see better
verbiage, that's because we are selecting for it.

------
elmojenkins
I'm surrounded by people who speak 'politically'. Rather than making their
statements clear and explicit, they structure their words in ways that allow
them to conceal the true meaning of what they said. Using verbs to
misrepresent meaning makes it tough to have good communication and solid
understanding between group members.

~~~
effie
Be an example to others, speak plainly and clearly when opportunity presents
itself. Assuming you are not in a too bad place, this may win you some friends
who are made of the right stuff and separate you from those who like to
impress, control or deceive with language. Of course, leaving for the better
environment is sometimes the best option.

------
conistonwater
> _If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out._

Does anybody know if this has been (properly) studied? It's not quite so
obvious that succinctness is good for readability and comprehension, and I
think it could also go the other way.

~~~
kldaace
I don't know whether this has been or can be studied formally, but anecdotally
I think modern writing often suffers from excess verbiage. Essays sometimes go
on for a long time without saying much, and this can cause a lot of
frustration for readers. I'm sure many of you have felt this frustration when
reading political opinion pieces.

A fun exercise that illustrates Orwell's point, when reading a sentence, see
how much you can reduce it without losing its original meaning. For instance,
I frame your question as follows:

"Do we know if this has been studied? It's not obvious that succinctness is
better for readability and comprehension. It might be worse."

You can think of this as the writer's version of code golf.

~~~
carlob
>but anecdotally I think modern writing often suffers from excess verbiage.

I love how meta this sentence is :)

~~~
kldaace
;)

------
Jach
Truly a great essay... When I reread it a couple years ago I made the semi-
serious connection to bad but all too common object oriented programming
practices as exemplified in Yegge's [http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html) Orwell says:

> As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in
> picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in
> order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long
> strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and
> making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way
> of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have
> the habit -- to say _In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption
> that_ than to say _I think_. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only
> don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with
> the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged
> as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when
> you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech
> -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like _a
> consideration which we should do well to bear in mind_ or _a conclusion to
> which all of us would readily assent_ will save many a sentence from coming
> down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save
> much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for
> your reader but for yourself.

To me it's a funny, semi-serious connection. I see many Javalanders are very
happy with Java, and have been for quite some time. For them it's easier, and
quicker once they're in the habit, to fire up Eclipse (or IntelliJ),
autocomplete and autorefactor and glue together this and that without having
to think much (hey tests are green!), sling giant names and namespaces around
dozens of files and directories up and down various call stacks in and out of
giant systems like Spring and Hibernate, a few even try to match large
programming patterns to everything... Yet still they frequently fail to convey
in code just what exactly is actually happening. In many cases they just
needed a few functions in a file or two with concise names that can be
remembered and typed without assistance, even written faithfully on paper
without having to use shorthand.

------
Jedd
I recall reading one of Christopher Hitchens' essays on language, where he
referred back to this essay of Orwell's.

(I don't believe it was in his book 'Why Orwell Matters', but maybe it was.)

Hitch is possibly best known now as a vocal anti-theist, but his writings on
language (mis-)use are delightful pieces.

------
compil3r
oppressive ideology in close association with bad prose, love this essay.

------
yks
Using the opulent language Orwell argues against in English language tests
like IELTS is a sure way to increase your score.

~~~
AimHere
To be fair, anyone who can use that kind of language does have enough grasp of
English to communicate, if they choose to!

------
tkfu
I detest this essay. I won't go too far into the reasons why, because David
Beaver has already done an excellent job of that:
[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992)

I'd also agree with Geoff Pullum's characterization of it as "a smug,
arrogant, dishonest tract full of posturing and pothering, and writing advice
that ranges from idiosyncratic to irrational"
([http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/04/04/eliminati...](http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/04/04/elimination-
of-the-fittest/))

But apart from it being a very poor source of writing advice, I don't believe
it's accurate in its diagnosis of _how_ language is deployed for political
ends—the question is a much more complicated one than he claims here.

There exist actual good books that can teach you how to write better, instead
of patting you on the back and allowing you to tut-tut at those plebians who
write things that are "outright barbarous". Pinker's _The Sense of Style_ is
one of those; Ann Lamott's _Bird by Bird_ is another. There also exist much
better (and more accurate and scientific) resources about how language
actually affects the way we think about things. Benjamin Bergen's _Louder than
Words_ is an excellent start, and virtually anything from Lakoff's long list
of publications is worth reading— _Metaphors We Live By_ is the classic, but
_Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_ in particular is excellent from his more
recent work.

~~~
zoul
The piece by David Beaver seems quite poor to me. What sense does it have to
turn the Orwell’s sixth rule (“feel free to break the rules if they stand in
the way of plain speech”) into a paradox? Its meaning is obvious. Bashing the
active/passive voice rule or the use of metaphors is pure nit-picking, as
already said by iso-8859-1. (And “milquetoast simulacra”, WTF?)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
A lot of people seem to get very angry about this. I wonder if this has more
to do with memories of English teaching at school - where sometimes they do
terrible things to writing - than to the content.

------
mk89
Despite the fact it was meant for something probably different, this reminds
me of what Umberto Eco wrote in his "Ur-Fascism": [...] _We kids hurried to
pick up the shells, precious items, but I had also learned that freedom of
speech means freedom from rhetoric._

And, sad enough, nowadays we are full of rhetoric.

------
merkleme
Great essay, and a mantra to live by - "If it is possible to cut a word, cut
it."

------
vivekd
I remember reading this in my high school English class, it was really the
only substantive work that I ever come across on how not to write badly. I
could never find another how-to work on how to keep your writing from being
bad.

------
tomelders
I've often (but only casually) wondered why "Orwelianism" isn't a thing, like
Marxism or Leninism or Reaganism/Thatcherism. I kind of understand why, as I
think his world view outs such things as inherently abhorrent, but since when
has that stopped people making idols out of people and dogma out of the things
they say?

But still, it would be nice if "Orwelianism" meant "Adhering to the principles
of George Orwell in encouraging critical thinking and considered reasoned
observation" and if it became a school of political thought... alas, all good
ideas are corrupted in the end, but human progress walks on the stepping
stones of ideologies, and it seems we've had nothing but nasty ones for a very
long time.

~~~
pwdisswordfish
> encouraging critical thinking and considered reasoned observation

That's already called rationalism and/or empiricism. Why does it need a
surname attached to it? It would only obscure the meaning. I think Orwell
himself would not be pleased; he very much argued in favour of expressing
yourself clearly. I think he has even wrote some kind of essay about it, but I
can't recall the title.

~~~
tomelders
I'm not saying Orwelianism should be a thing, I'm wondering why it isn't. As I
said in my comment, it doesn't matter what Orwell himself has to say on the
matter. By all accounts, Jesus (if he were a real figure) wasn't keen on the
idea of organised religion, yet here we are. Once your dead, you lose any say
in the matter and the words you leave behind will be appropriated,
decontextualised and regurgitated to make you say things you never would.

I think Orwell has a lot of the traits that made people like Marx idols. A
good chunk of his writing is actually instruction. And he has a lot of fans,
but no fanatics. I merely find it curious that Orewlianism isn't an ideology.

I did take an extra step and pondered wether it would be a good thing, but
that's a throw away thought.

~~~
effie
> Jesus (if he were a real figure) wasn't keen on the idea of organised
> religion, yet here we are.

That's interesting, could you post a source (if Bible, the book and verse?)

------
oftenwrong
Is this essay still under US copyright?

------
igravious
What's the canonical way to cite this essay? Answers on the back of a bibtex
napkin please.

------
elie_CH
The proposed French translation is awful :)

------
bitwize
People want to promote horrible policies without Trumping themselves.

~~~
nikcheerla
Not sure I understand?

~~~
bitwize
Every time Donald Trump opens his mouth, something horrible comes out. His
supporters are right about one thing: he says what he believes with almost no
brain-mouth filter, and that's really the best thing about him.

People who support odious policies and want to see them enacted can't do that,
so they have to weasel-word it.

------
RodericDay
I used to like this essay, but the folks over at [UPenn's Language
Log]([http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992))
do a great takedown of it, and I am inclined to agree with them. Orwell is
extremely hypocritical (which many people try to claim is a "deliberate stroke
of genius", with very little evidence to support it).

It's particularly a hit amongst center-left liberals who are emboldened into
feeling like they are very righteous by not doing anything at all. The more
accurate observation comes from commenter Mark F:

> _The reason Orwell 's essay makes some people angry is that it depicts
> violations of stylistic rules as moral violations. Use the passive, it says,
> and you are playing into the hands of the totalitarians._ I think that's
> also why some people like it; people can feel like they're defending the
> cause of freedom by writing concisely.

> _I tend to side with the former camp. I think people pick up on cant pretty
> well without his help, except when it 's telling them something they already
> want to believe. And in the latter case his help is no use._

~~~
RodericDay
It's also worth reading Asimov review of Orwell's 1984
([http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm](http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm)).

There's a kind of person out there who really likes George Orwell, Steven
Pinker, David Foster Wallace, Christopher Hitchens, etc. which all pander to a
political sensibility that is very self-congratulatory about inaction, and
consistently says "things are fine, don't rock the boat, you'll make things
worse".

It's ironic that on HN, critics of Orwell's work are said to be "your typical
critics", but really, it's Orwell and Pinker and co. that consistently
push/pushed out tracts that are critical takedowns of third parties. So their
readers are now smugly self-satisfied twice over: once when agreeing with the
authors, once while dismissing their critics.

~~~
TheLarch
You have a point. There is always that possibility that a particular
employment of language politics is just, so to reject all political neologisms
risks rejecting the just ones too.

I struggle with the language of women's rights, for instance. I think about
Orwell when I hear 'mansplaining' for example. Yet, at the same time I often
see challenges that are unique to women.

------
grabcocque
Orwell's advice on how to write better English is at best naively harmfully,
and at worst cravenly hypocritical. He never followed his own "rules", why in
the hell should anyone else? Answer: because his rules are self-serving
bullshit.

Case in point: Orwell uses passive constructions 40% more frequently than than
an average English corpus. This essay is full of them. Language Log did a
brilliant analysis of the essay's towering inaccuracy and hypocrisy:

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992)

\---

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

And wouldn't you know it, the very first sentence of Orwell's essay runs:

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English
language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by
conscious action do anything about it.

\---

His rules are bullshit, and he knew it, which is why he was smart enough to
ignore them completely.

~~~
kqr
I'm not sure how you're able to conclude that the guidelines are bullshit just
because he himself fails to adhere strictly to them. All authors break their
own guidelines from time to time.

I feel like this is something the HN audience should be familiar with. At
least I personally know a lot of guidelines for creating maintainable
software, but there are a host of conditions which will cause me to bypass
them anyway.

~~~
chrisdone
The article itself basically says "I break these rules regularly, I'm not
perfect either". But I think some people like to point out people's flaws to
show off. Orwell's article is sincere.

~~~
sotojuan
Sounds cynical, but you're right. And people that like ti point out flaws in
everything are "something the HN audience should be familiar with" :-)

