Politics and the English Language

by George Orwell

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

SONG AND DANCE MAN

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP IN THE SEVENTIES, I (and most of my peers) thought of Bob Dylan as someone our parents listened to, along with others like Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and the hundreds of bands popular in the 1960's. That in itself was enough to relegate Dylan to the "uncool" list, as far as we were concerned. Besides, most of us were busy listening to bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Foreigner, AC/DC, et al...and Dylan had an air of being highbrow, of being "relevant" and "meaningful", which alone was enough to make that fabled teen-age list of the uncool.