2/27/2004 09:06:00 AM|||Andrew|||Propelled by a link on Kevin's site (blogbandit) about rules for writing, I began to read Elements of Style again. As always, it is in all ways excellent, a little book that everyone who writes should own. It reminded me of another brilliant piece about writing, George Orwell's Politics and the English Language. Hop on over and give it a read here. Especially if you blog or write in any capacity. What follows is a passage from the essay that should fill you with terror.

"Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one."|||107790159142649481|||