Sign in with Facebook
1,241 books
—
540 voters
“(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
― Politics and the English Language
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
― Politics and the English Language
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
― Politics and the English Language
― Politics and the English Language
“Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. 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.”
― Politics and the English Language
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.”
― Politics and the English Language
UK Book Club
— 6939 members
— last activity 4 hours, 45 min ago
This is a book group for Goodreads users in the UK, but members from other countries are welcome too so long as all posts are made in English. Please ...more
Contemporary Christian Fiction
— 1257 members
— last activity Feb 25, 2026 02:02PM
A meeting place for those who love contemporary Christian fiction.
Hazel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Hazel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
818 books
|
111 friends
406 books
|
210 friends
1,289 books
|
4,990 friends
1,036 books
|
1,750 friends
5,094 books
|
581 friends
11,481 books
|
1,021 friends
2,354 books
|
467 friends
788 books
|
602 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Hazel
Lists liked by Hazel
