The 'Political' english language.

George Orwell wrote an essay about the English language and how contemporary English language has just become manipulative and very 'political.' Orwell said that political English was simply created to "make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Basically, to manipulate voters into thinking that the politicians were whiter than white and being truthful even if they were the most immoral of people. But he argued that this manipulative creation had spread to those that didn't even need to decorate lies, the general population. I think this is true 100%, journalism has taught me that school teacher English as it has been called by our lecturers, is designed to make you decorate the basics. Fill out a sentence. Rather than just get to the point. The point of a sentence is to provide information to your reader, audience, whatever. But how can you do this when half of your readers don't know what you are talking about! By using 'political English' a writer can distract himself from the purpose of writing in the first place, constantly trying to make what he is saying sound interesting, controversial or intelligent and drown the information in a sea of over complicated, alienating bullshit.

Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English Language", lays out six rules to avoid political English language:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
   

Even Orwell said that these bad writing habits can be easily picked up by anyone. He said that he had even committed the same bad habits that his essay was against! So why is it so easy to pick up these bad habits. In a society where most jobs, schools and even people require us to be intelligent it is easy for us to cover our basic/sloppy ideas and transform them into something brilliant by decorating the idea with elaborate language. I am also guilty of doing this!
I think developing these bad habits goes way back to the schoolroom. Teachers were always pushing you to use descriptive language and forcing you away from the basic words, "what is wrong with the word but", what's wrong with umbrella words? Why can we not just say what we think. That is the purpose of a word, to show exactly what you mean. Why should I point at a wall and go "that solid object formed of a red stone that prevents access" when I can just say, "that wall that stops me getting in". Teachers were always handing me back essays with 'describe this in more detail', why? She's sad. That's how she feels now please get stuffed! I don't want to pick up a paper and read a pompous article about a load of facts. I want the facts and that is what Orwell is saying. Lets not have unnecessary words that take away the feeling of the article/story just so that a writer can dress it up. Lets leave that to the politicians!

WINOL - The new term

So, a new year a new module. I know it is a bit late to start blogging but I thought I would get back into it. I have sat down so many times and just had complete writers block! Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Starting our second year we are now part of the team that produces WINOL - Winchester News Online - a university based news channel that brings the local news from all over Winchester to the people that take an interest. Not many right?
Although I didn't think that WINOL was going to be as big as BBC news or any other news channel for that matter I still didn't feel confident enough in being in front of or behind the camera. So I decided to opt for a features job - more specifically - the features role of people and celebrity. I know what you're thinking... "People and celebrity? In Winchester!" Yes I know that when you walk down the street you're hardly likely to bump into Kate moss or Peter Andre but I had to make the best of it!

So people and celebrity. What was I going to do. Who could I possibly use? Then I realised, WINOL is a university based news channel, with a majority of the audience being staff and students. So why not just used well recognised people from the university, people who everyone knew but wouldn't necessarily be able to talk to everyday. People like the student union president or the DJ's of well known university events! So that is where my idea came from. I decided every week that I would do a feature interview on the people whose names were known but not necessarily what they were like or what they did. Similar to a celebrity.
Who would be my first victim! I only came up with the idea at the features meeting and when the editor asked me who I was going to interview I panicked... "I haven't actually got anyone... I could ask the DJ at LKD (another student event)?" So that's what she put me down to do and to have it in by 6pm on the following day! So I rushed home to try and get in contact... but did not hear anything back. Then my friend put me in touch with Jimmy Weighall the student union president. He asked me if I was available to do it right there and then... of course I said yes! So I rushed up to the union armed with a digital camera and no questions. Great!
Luckily on the way I thought of some questions, just the basic get to know you questions though, stuff about his role and about how he felt doing the job bla bla bla. From doing that interview Irealised in the next one I needed a few 'curve balls' questions that would cause a bit of panic. After all, if a interview isn't interesting... no one is going to read it right?
Well I wrote up the interview in the style of a magazine. The standard question and answer format but after talking to Chris (my lecturer) I realised it wasn't enough. I was writing for a feature not the news, so I had to be creative and somehow convey myself through the article. He told me to write it as though I was going on some sort of adventure of discovery to include my own opinions and thoughts as well as the interviewee. So in my future interviews this is something I will take on board. I will be creative and put an element of myself in the interview. So... all I have to do now is re write my original interview!

If you want... take a look at WINOL every Wednesday! The team do a really good job!

www.winol.co.uk

Its a shame..

Once again a football match between Millwall and West Ham breaks out into violence with an alleged stabbing. Unfortunately for the players all their hard work will be over shadowed by their uncontrollable 'fans' violent outbreak at the match on Tuesday night.

West Ham's 3 - 1 victory will once again be pushed to the back of peoples minds as predictable 'match reports' begin with the violence that ended the game rather than anything to do with the actual match.
Football hooliganism in my opinion should be made thing of a past, in a society accepting of such violence how can we ever hope to deter youth away from such things as knife culture and bullying when its going on every weekend at such a thing as a common sports match?
Big burly men beating the hell out of eachother around children and women are not my idea of good upstanding people, and they're setting bad examples for younger men (and women) to follow.
So... well done west ham... Let down by your fans again.

The Great Drug Debate!

I know it probably isn't the most positive item to kick start with, but after reading a few items I found it quite interesting on how people react to the subject. Not just drugs, I mean what people think should be done with them, or how the entire industry should be dealt with. To legalise or not to, this is the great debate.
Many argue that legalising drugs would ultimately lead to having some control over the trade. There would be no drug lords/barons, drug related killings and people would not have to worry what the drugs were being made of as they could be made legally. Other drug related crimes would also decline as being created in a controlled state would mean that money associated with it could also be controlled... similar to alcohol in that it is created in a controlled area and prices are controlled. However, would the legalisation of drugs not paint us the picture that taking drugs is an acceptable thing to do? Or would legalistaion make it easier for addicts to "get clean" because some of the moral issues associated with taking drugs would be made redundant making it less of a taboo in society thus making being an addict easier to admit to.
There are many moral issues linked with the legalisation of drugs, as there are with any law. I know its easy for me to say "even if they were legal I wouldn't take it" because I know about the moral issues and the negative aspects of drugs. However, if drugs were to be legal, our children would know nothing of the moral issues that they are linked with. Would drugs be to them how alcohol is to many of us now? Instead of binge drinking... Would there be binge drug abuse? The illegal stamp that drugs carry make these substances the ultimate taboo, there are arguments over what classes drugs should be let alone whether they should be legal or not. There is a reason drugs are illegal just as their are reasons for age restrictions on other substances like alcohol.
There are pro's and cons to both arguments, but as it stands it should be a long time before any decision is made. Both parties need to be considered, victims of the already out of control drugs trade and the potential victims that stand to suffer if drugs were to be legalised.

Meeting Someone Who Lost It All..

Whilst out filming for our television news day at "The Big Sleepout" - a charity event that aids the homeless - We met and interviewed a man who literally had and lost it all.
Ed Mitchell had been a 30 year journalist working at various institutions including the BBC, a famous face amongst journalists and at one point earned £100,000 a year.
The economic climate and debt eventually took its toll, and Ed lost everything, including his family. For most of the year that he spent homeless he slept rough and told us "when your sleeping rough, there is no way out."
It proved to me, in our time of economic struggle, that the recession in fact DOES hit everyone, whether dramatically or not it is a great time of struggle where people need to stick together. Ed told us that it was "by a miricle" that he got out of it and not many homeless people have the same luck. Without the christian homeless charities and night shelters he would never have survived. An example of society pulling together to help others in a time of great struggle. So shouldn't our government instead of putting money into thier back pockets be pulling together with the rest of society to get us out of this time of desperation.
Ed Mitchell said if there was an important thing he got out of his suffering it was that he now has "no fear" and that after losing everything and coming back from it he has so much more confidence and doesn't worry about hitting rock bottom.
It was scary to realise that even those who could be sitting on the highest perches one day could have the troubbles of scraping around in the dirt the next.
His story was really interesting and inspiring and he was a lovely man to talk to. I'm glad I had the fortune of meeting him!

Links

These are a few links that may be useful!


http://journalism.winchester.ac.uk

The Great Radio Debate!

The recent opinions of radio presenter James O'Brien definately landined him in a bit of hot water with not only Frank Lampard but a fair few others aswell! It made me think that Frank Lampard was perfectly within his rights to defend himself just like any other father divorced from his wife and without his children. I should know, my parent aren't together and I still see my dad, he still does pretty much everything for his kids. Times are different, marraige is no longer taken the way it was forty years ago. In a society where more women are opting for a baby over a husband, its unlikely that many children will live with both parental units in the same home. Why should that make a man "scum"? Its very appropriate for a man in a family situation to say "I would fight tooth and nail to keep my kids" but until they're in a situation where the children are to be with both parental units then its difficult to imagine what you would do in that situation.
Personally I don't think there should be this stigma attatched to single parents. Many fathers work hard to take care of their children without seeing them everyday! I think that O'brien was also extremely hypocritical. When interviewed about the whole situation he said that their had only been a reaction to what had happened because Frank Lampard was "this famous footballer", however, O'brien only explicitly commented on his situation because it was in the newspaper, he therefore exploited the same fame at which he was so aggrivated about.
I completely agree that he is entitled to express his opinion, and as he rightly said, it is a radio show and people are able to call in at any time to express their own views but I don't believe that he should have made the 'attack' so personal or so insulting. Thats just mindless name calling!