How Do Language and Thought Corrupt Each Other? Analysis of George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"

In his piece "Politics and the English Language", George Orwell writes, "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." What does Orwell mean when he makes this assertion? While there are certainly many perceptions of Orwell's quote, I believe the meaning behind it can be boiled down to the ideas of necessity and influence in society.

First, we must look at the first section of Orwell's quote: "But if thought corrupts language...". This is the part of Orwell's quote that ties to the theme of necessity in society. What I mean by this is that when thought corrupts language, it is often because of a necessity (or perceived necessity) by society for language to evolve. An example of this is contractions. Society does not need contractions in writing or speaking to endure (as evidenced by my use of "does not" instead of "doesn't" there), but since it is easier to use contractions than to say both words, we began to think that they were necessary for use and changed the language and our use of it. Another example of thought corrupting language are words like quiz. Originally, there was no such word as quiz (at least not the common meaning of the word), but in the mid-18th century, the word was put into use following a Dublin man named John Daly claiming that he could invent a new word. The word caught on quickly, and although humanity could have just used words like test or exam to do the job of quiz, quiz became the used word because it more accurately describes a shorter test. The perceived necessity for that increase in accuracy is what led to the change (or corruption) of language.  Thus, the beginning of Orwell's quote where he claims that "thought corrupts language" can be understood by looking at society's tendency to place necessity on advancements in language.

Now that we understand how thought can corrupt language, we can look at the second part of Orwell's quote: "language can also corrupt thought." This part of Orwell's quote can be applied to the theme of influence in society. Looking at politics and advertising, one can see that marketing language can easily corrupt one's thoughts. For example, look at advertisements for companies like Nike. Nike's shirts often cost upwards of $30-$35 a piece, while similar shirts from smaller companies are usually much cheaper (and often are made from better quality materials). So why do people pay more for lower quality shirts from Nike? It comes down to Nike's marketing prowess. By combining big-name athletes (who wouldn't want to be like LeBron James?) and inspiring language like "Just Do It" and "It's only crazy until you do it", Nike is able to hook in potential customers with language that changes their thoughts of the brand to a mindset that finds Nike appealing even if that does not logically make sense. The same idea of marketing influence causing language to corrupt thought can see in politics. An example is the changing of language to turn the "estate" tax into the "death" tax. When it was the estate tax, few people cared about this tax because estate implied a wealth that few had and thus the tax was seen as something that affected few people (as is the case). However, politicians knew that they needed to get funding from people that did fall within the estate tax margin. So, they changed the name of the tax to the "death tax" because the word has a more negative connotative meaning and implies that money is being taken from dead people. Just like that language had corrupted thoughts and public opinion quickly changed on the tax. Therefore, in the different realms of marketing, one can see how the theme of influence can give meaning to the second part of Orwell's quote.

In conclusion, thoughts can corrupt language and language can corrupt thoughts, proving Orwell's assertion true. Ultimately, these ideas of thoughts and language corrupting each other can be applied to the societal themes of necessity (with evolution) and influence (with marketing).