George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language shares many similarities with William Strunk and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style. Both pieces focus on the elimination of “cut-paste” phrases. These phrases take away from the author’s purpose. Along with commonly pasted phrases, both of these texts encourage writers to eliminate unnecessary words. Difficult words to understand or having too many words can cause confusion for the reader. Strunk and White agree with Orwell that using an active voice is better than the passive in proper places. They claim an active voice is more direct and intense than the passive. Finally, using positive forms of a word can make the writing sound more clean. Using negatives such as “not” and “never” are worse than using the word’s opposite or its proper negative substitution. However, Strunk and White also disagree with Orwell on some concepts. Strunk and White believe in cutting down sentences, but they do not see the need to break a long sentence into two. Orwell, however, believes that breaking a sentence into two can make it less complicated and distracting for the reader. Orwell also feels that large, descriptive, academic-like words cause a general audience to become flustered. He believes using small, simple words are best for communicating with the reader. Strunk and White agree with this concept, but also feel that cutting down a sentence with intense, descriptive words is beneficial when attempting to write vividly. Strunk and White also focus on many rules regarding punctuation, while Orwell worries more about choice of vocabulary. The three authors seem to agree on many elements of writing style, but the world is never black and white. It is most important to keep the audience in mind when writing for the media.
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