We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job. - Winston Churchill
The sentence, a verb in the active voice, had a decisive urgency of battlefield command, a shocking transition from literacy elegance. No tears. No plaintive whining. No soft soap. Not a wasted syllable. †
George Orwell's Politics and the English Language is now 74 years old. In this text, he says words have consequences. Fog is everywhere. Fog online. Fog in print. Fog spewed from the mouths of talking heads on TV, politicians, self-professed professors of non-actionable blather about managing complex problems, who have done so.
The English language is now used to carpet bomb us with bloated mumbo-jumbo, and so over nuanced words, they are meaningless. From the White House to the local rag, we've lost the ability to communicate clearly, concisely, with tangible outcomes stated in units of measure meaningful to the decision-makers.
† Do I Make Myself Clear: Why Writing Well Matters, Harold Evans, Little Brown, 2017
