Today is George Orwell's Birthday. Eric Arthur Blair was born on 25 June 1903. Nearly everybody in the English-speaking world has at least heard of, if not read, the iconic books 1984 and Animal Farm, or has at least heard of Big Brother. Less familiar is his work as journalist, essayist, poet and critic. Our language has acquired the adjective orwellian to describe a situation nobody wants to be facing.

When I taught writing, my students' first assignment was to write an in-class essay, then read Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language, which is the source of the material in the clip above, then rework their own essay using the rules Orwell recommended. It usually improved their work.

However, rereading Politics and the English Language finds me thinking that in the sixty-three years since it was first published, that, firstly, in all this time, few people have taken its advice to heart; (continued in comments)

secondly, it could just as easily have been pubished yesterday.