The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms.
That's today's quote from Google. One thing about George Orwell, he certainly had courage.
It's not only the likes of Sherry Jones and Taslima Nasreen who have shown courage. Scott Adams gets it too. But it would be too easy to just relate tales of Jon Swift and Lenny Bruce and Monty Python and a long history of comic subversion. Let's turn to cricket instead. There are many lessons for life in The Art of Captaincy and Opening Up, but most autobiographies are dross. And in CricInfo yesterday we are back to Orwell:
Upon hearing of the bugs squashed on the wallpaper of the hotel opposite his, young kitchen hand George Orwell did not beseech the bugs to write his book for him. Down and Out in Paris and London is no less grisly or educational a read for the lack of bugs' insights. Yet in cricket we see the bugs everywhere, furnishing us with their bug's-eye perspectives, and not just any old bugs but former top-level bugs.
But those "bugs" that Christian Ryan refers to are some serious big names in the world of cricket. So there goes his chance of getting any exclusive interviews with them. That was brave too.
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2 comments:
I don't follow cricket one bit. I followed your post even less. Still, it was enjoyable reading.
Oh, and I call my pets my lovebugs. They don't do my writing for me either. :)
Yes, not easy to follow, even on re-reading it myself. I was only trying link current events, sport, comedy, language, politics, insight, and of course cricket.
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