George Orwell

I understand Orwell’s statement as a warning about the danger of not speaking in one’s own voice as a writer. He feels that clichés are troublesome for the writer because they mean that the writer is not truly expressing what he or she feels. The writer is allowing the “ready-made phrase,” not his or her own thoughts, to speak. Orwell continues by saying that using unoriginal statements in writing carries the risk of obscuring the meaning of the ideas the writer is trying to convey. This is because a cliché by definition has a meaning of its own, so using one automatically connotes an idea in the mind of the reader; whatever original thought the writer is attempting to communicate is overshadowed by the prefabricated meaning of the cliché. For these reasons, Orwell cautions against “surrender[ing]” to words. If the writer is lazy and resorts to the use of stock phrases rather than attempting to express him or herself using original prose, those phrases end up having more autonomy than the writer does. Orwell believes that to prevent words from dictating meaning, a conscientious and thorough writer must take the time to find a way to convey his or her ideas with original language. If the writer resorts to expressions created by someone else, he or she is also resorting to ideas created by someone else.