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Idioms In George Orwell's Politics And The English Language

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Idioms
An idiom is a phrase or a fixed expression having a figurative, or sometimes literal, meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom 's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning.

In linguistics, idioms are presumed to be figures of speech contradicting the principle of compositionality. It being the key notion for the analysis of idioms and emphasized in most accounts of idioms. This principle states that the meaning of a whole should be constructed from the meanings of the parts that make up the whole. The literal compositionality is however discarded in idioms meaning that the idiomatic reading is, rather, stored as a single lexical item that is now largely independent of the literal reading.

In phraseology, …show more content…

As has just become obvious figurative expressions are problematic, and not just for non-English speakers. George Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language": “By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save mental effort at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.” Orwell probably didn’t have the term “booty call” in mind, but his argument that idioms and cliché expressions mix “vagueness and sheer incompetence” holds true. Orwell argued that politicians are the worst abusers of figurative speech. They take the …show more content…

Now allow us to hypothesize with a cock and bull story about the supposed recent miss-use of idioms in a coded message. Let us say that 007 was not available so MI5 sent a message coded in idioms to their counterparts in Ireland so that agent Triple O Zero, a dark horse, could disseminate said message. The CIA rate him as somebody that can blind you with science, and not quite on the ball. The Chinese CCP, rate him as one capable of creating Chinese arithmetic. The Russians consider him a real Sputnik.

Being the sharpest tool in Ireland’s shed, he was fully aware that Idioms do not translate well into other languages. Conjuring up one of those light bulb moments he took it upon himself to make the required adjustments. He did however play devil’s advocate. The code coming from the English, he couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Ignorance is bliss so what was created with a horse’s sense was unleashed on the world. The results … mind

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