Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:30:25.692Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“I mean to say …”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Ralph Footring
Ralph Footring*
Affiliation:
British Journal of Psychiatry
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

You might regard words as dependable things, that never do anything more tricksy than linger overly long on the tip of your tongue. But beware – don't let them gang up on you, or you'll be left with phrases.

George Orwell (1946) wrote in ‘Politics and the English language’ that:

“prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together … the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”(pp. 145, 152, italics in original)

Type
On writing
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 16 , Issue 12 , December 1992 , pp. 795
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1992

References

Orwell, G. (1946) Politics and the English language. Currently available in Inside the Whale and Other Essays. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.