Advice On Political Writing. (yeah, I'm wasting a post on this)

[cali]

No, no. Not my advice, George Orwell's from his great essay entitled Politics and The English Language" This is just a snippet from the end.

<snip>

(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 barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep
change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style
now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English,
but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in these five
specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely
language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or
preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming
that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext
for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what
Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow
such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present
political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can
probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If
you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of
orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you
make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.
Political language-and with variations this is true of all political
parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists--is designed to make lies sound
truthful and murder respectable. and to give an appearance of solidity to
pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least
change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers
loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase--some JACKBOOT,
ACHILLES' HEEL, HOTBED, MELTING POT, ACID TEST, VERITABLE INFERNO or
other lump of verbal refuse--into the dustbin where it belongs.


http://www.george-orwell.org/Politics_and_the_English_Language/0.html

[flor de jasmim]

1. Now, if the MSM only understood the meaning of "barbarous" (rule vi)

To that you could add the Gricean principles of cooperation>

a) be truthful
b) be relevant
c) say neither too much nor too little (so that the truth is not distorted)
d) be clear

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S *FIT* TO PRINT...

[cali]

2. more excellent guidelines.

I actually posted the Orwell rules because I think that writing clearly and staying away from the ponderous and pretentious is important. There are that many posters who engage in this, but the ones that do are invariably lauded as great writers. It's long been one of my pet peeves.

[panAmerican]

3. K&R