Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Speech Simple Writing Simple Writing To gain understanding, the path from sender to receiver must be straight, clear, and concrete. If one clouds this path, the sender can state anything to the naivete of the receiver. A distrust builds between the receiver and the sender to a point at which the receiver will not believe anything that comes from the sender, or the sender puts himself above and no longer wants to be a part of the receiver’s world. This happens all to frequently in the political world. The members of parliament use jargon to not offend as many people as possible. Jargon is terminology used by specially defined groups, and useless gibberish to another group. Jargon protects the government and business elite, by convincing common people that the elite know something to good for the commoners. When jargon is used, it confuses the common people, who “prefer the specific to the general, the defined to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.”(Strunk & White 15) “A writer’s diction should be as plain and simple as is consistent with a clear and effective treatment of his subjects.”(Hoole 139) When people do not write plainly and simply, honor and trust is lost. One must also use good style to convey understanding. “Style takes its finial shape more from attitudes of the mind than from principles of composition.”(Strunk & White 70) If one’s heart desires deception and deceit, one will use large words in hopes of confusing the receiver. Therefor authorities and bureaucrats should communicate in clear simple prose, not jargon. Jonathan Swift was a man who took pleasure in the simple. He was born in 1667 and died in 1745. In his life he wrote many great proposals and prose. In 1712, Swift published A Proposal Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue, in which Swift trying to convince Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, Lord High Treasure of Great Britain to start a program to eliminate all the useless and vague words. Swift calls such words “enthusiastic jargon,” and warns against the over simplification of modern book and pamphlets. He also noted when additives where tacked on to something simple, clarity was lost: “And I doubt whether the alterations since introduced, have added much to the beauty or strength of the English tongue, though they have taken off a great deal from that simplicity, which is one of the greatest reflections in any language.”(Swift 32-33) “And by the many beautiful passages, which I have often had the honor to hear your lordship cite form thence, I am persuaded that the translators of Bible were masters of an English style much fitter for that work, than any we see in our present writings, which I take to be owing to the simplicity that runs through the whole.”(Swift 33) Swift’s solution was to start a program that would diminish this problem. He also believed that to have the heart of one’s subjects is the most lasting monument authorities can posses. This concept still holds true in our day and age. The secret of re-election lays in the understanding among the common people, through clear and concrete writing and speech this is gained. George Orwell was also a man that yearned of the clear and concrete in writing and politics. Orwell was born in 1903 and died in 1950. He wrote books such as Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Also Orwell wrote many great essays. In one such essay, Politics and the English Language, Orwell states the main cause of political and economical chaos is due to the decline of language. To think clearly, Orwell believes, is the first step towards political rebuilding. The faults of the language: “The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision.”(Orwell 303) The largest problem in political writing is the vagueness and the use of ready-made phrases. The ready-made phrases “are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech.”(Orwell 308) When one uses this inflated speech one covers up the details and blurs the purpose. “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible”(Orwell 309) Common people are not going to trust the bureaucrats who make a living trying to make the lies seem like truth. Instead of beating around the bush authorities should guard against double speaking “if one is constantly in guard against them (referring to double speaking), and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.”(Orwell 310) Willa Cather also knew how to write simple and clearly. She used clarity to provoke the reader’s imagination: “We were talking about what it is like to spend one’s childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron.”(Cather) Cather knew how to keep her reader reading and attentive. Authorities and bureaucrats should take a lesson from Cather on how simplify and keep audience. Then listeners would not groan, and turn off. People then would understood their rights and care for what is happening in our country, because what was said would be plain, and would not take large amounts of thinking to understand. In conclusion, the importance of clear and precise writing can not be emphasized enough. If a speaker has the ability to keep the attention of the receivers and conveys a simple message, the speaker will be well liked and trusted. When jargon is simplified, people become more open minded, and put personal input into what they desire. Then the world would run as the founding fathers dreamt it: all people of every class working together. Bibliography: sorry Word Count: 983
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