Name:______________________________________________ Date:__________________

Politics and the English Language

Read the passage below, then answer the questions which follow.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.3 Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.

"Politics and the English Language"

… Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. ...

- George Orwell (1946)

1. According to Orwell, how are a man's drinking problem and the English language connected?

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2. How does Orwell justify the fight against bad English?

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3. Two examples are underlined in the above paragraph. Circle the statement(s) that they help clarify. How helpful are the examples? Would you be able to understand the circled statements without them?

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4. Fill out an outline of the major points of the above paragraph, in order as they appear:

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