Despite outward appearances, Orwell is not making one of those prescriptivist rants that you sometimes see from people who don't know how language evolves. What Orwell is talking about is deeper. His essay more about style rather than grammar, which means it's not really taking part in the (de- vs pre-)scriptivist debates in the first place. However, it goes the extra mile in using examples to show how pointlessly fluffy prose is simply worse at communication, because it either obscures the point, or (he implies) causes a point never to exist in the first place because it promotes wooly thinking.
Yeah, his essay makes some rookie mistakes, like complaining about recent decline and using the passive voice. He's still correct, in general. He's not stating rules of grammar or trying to lay down any sort of law, he's posting a couple of helpful pointers for getting your point across, which emphasis precision and clarity over appearing educated.
I think the biggest indication that that critique is ill-founded is that it doesn't start with "well, it's kinda long," because that's the biggest hypocrisy I detect. What is really comes down to, is that an essay that's really about prose and composition shouldn't be analyzed as if it's about linguistics, even when it happens to have "language" in the title by stroke of ill fortune.
Yeah, his essay makes some rookie mistakes, like complaining about recent decline and using the passive voice. He's still correct, in general. He's not stating rules of grammar or trying to lay down any sort of law, he's posting a couple of helpful pointers for getting your point across, which emphasis precision and clarity over appearing educated.
I think the biggest indication that that critique is ill-founded is that it doesn't start with "well, it's kinda long," because that's the biggest hypocrisy I detect. What is really comes down to, is that an essay that's really about prose and composition shouldn't be analyzed as if it's about linguistics, even when it happens to have "language" in the title by stroke of ill fortune.