Orwell and Newspeak

George Orwell is my favourite author/writer. By far. His style of writing (not only in his books, but also in his essays - they are brilliant, Why I Write or his essay on the common toad) is rather direct and simple in its observance of everyday life, but often also heartbreakingly beautiful - precisely because it is so simple. His similes are always spot on, and although thankfully I grew up in a secure and comparatively wealthy environment, his description of poverty in Keep the Aspidistra Flying made me feel like I was experiencing it myself, like I knew exactly how it feels to be poor. I think the beauty of his writing lies in its simplicity - or maybe I should rather say accessibility, because it is not always easy to write like this. He never used two words where one would do, and although I usually love rich language, absurdly creative metaphors and all that, he never fails to touch me exactly where he intended to. Curiously, he himself admitted freely to the fact that often, words cannot express a concept satisfactorily (see his essay New Words) and he had six basic rules for writers (find a nice article on it here):

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.      

Perhaps that's the reason why I like him so much.                                                                                                          Although it might be a bit clichéd, my favourite Orwell book is 1984, which is also my favourite book of all times. I must have read it about four or five times now, and it still scares me. On the one hand of course because looking back I can see how much of it actually became true in the Sovjet Union and East Germany (and the recent hacking by the NSA - after this came out the sales of 1984 increased by 7%). On the other hand because of the whole Newspeak concept. No matter how often I have read it already, reading this passage always sends shivers down my spine:

"…the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought (…) we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it (…) Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller (…) by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now"

Luckily, we still have rather a lot of words to express our thoughts with, and although we're approaching 2050 with rapid speed, plusgood and doubleplusgood are still only fiction. Nevertheless, the sheer possibility of Newspeak is terrifying. It also links to the concept of Linguistic Relativity (click here for wikipedia's summary - basically it just means that language affects how we think and see the world) and Orwell makes a really good (though frightening) point.
The basic principle of Newspeak is to eliminate all Synonyms and Antonyms, as well as concepts that contradict the regime's beliefs. Orwell might have got the idea from Basic English, which he promoted until 1944 (and then rejected it). For a better idea of how he thought about the English language, I suggest you read his essay Politics and the English Language.

Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair by the way) also had a significant influence on our everyday language, especially through 1984. Apart from inspiring the term Orwellian (roughly: describion of methods of control via propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past), he either coined, inspired or popularised a lot of words and terms in today's language. Here a few examples:

Big Brother I think we all have heard about the reality TV show, but it's also used in the political sense to describe surveillance etc
Doublethink simultaneously accepting two contradictory beliefs
Doublespeak does not appear in 1984, but is obviously inspired by Doublethink - deliberately obscuring or distorting the meaning of something, for example through euphemism
Thoughtcrime having controversial or socially/politically inacceptable thoughts, also used theologically (e.g. disbelief) or to describe the rejection of moral/ social principles
Room 101 now a popular TV show, a place where extremely unpleasant things happen
2+2=5 originally used by the Sovjet Union to promote that their 5 year plan could be completed in 4 years, also appearing in Notes From Underground by Dostoyevsky - obviously illogical statement, but (in this context) if the majority believes it/ the law states it, it must be true
Memory hole any mechanism to alter or delete inconvenient/incriminating data to make it seem as if it never happened (e.g. the Chinese Gouvernment's attempt to cover up the Tiananmen Square Massacre)

So yes, I think it's safe to say that Orwell was one of the most influencial authors of the 20th century - and one of the best, in my opinion. I would strongly recommend his lesser-known books and his essays, though to start I think you can't go wrong with Animal Farm and most certainly not with 1984. I think I might just re-read it...again.