Politics and The English Language by George Orwell is the thirtieth of The Essays - you find this collection in the 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, nonetheless, the algorithm changes the places of the compilation, ergo you could see a different structure, I don’t know what data is used, however, if it takes into account the ‘reading public’, then the chefs d’oeuvre will descend from the top spots, and the likes of The Da Vinci Code will dominate the front rows, and they will become the “GOAT” – that notwithstanding, you have more than five thousand reviews on books from the aforementioned site and others, with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you are interested

 

Politics and The English Language by George Orwell is the thirtieth of The Essays - you find this collection in the 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, nonetheless, the algorithm changes the places of the compilation, ergo you could see a different structure, I don’t know what data is used, however, if it takes into account the ‘reading public’, then the chefs d’oeuvre will descend from the top spots, and the likes of The Da Vinci Code will dominate the front rows, and they will become the “GOAT” – that notwithstanding, you have more than five thousand reviews on books from the aforementioned site and others, with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you are interested

 

 

10 out of 10

 

The Essays of George Orwell https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-prevention-of-literature-by-george.html are coming to an end for this reader, and this is unfortunate, for they have been exhilarating, even when the subjects were passe, or no longer that relevant for our age, such as Books v Cigarettes

 

As for Politics and The English Language, there is so much to cherish here, including advice I should (and those who write) take: use a short word, instead of a long one, local expressions, not foreign ones, if you can cut something out, do it – it is not what you find in the text, but quite close I hope – the deterioration of language is a fact now as well

 

‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/hamlet-by-william-shakespeare.html Shakespeare wrote this in Hamlet, in other words, this note should have ended before this point, indeed, it should not be extant at all, nevertheless, I will just refer to Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis and then move out

Kingsley Amis wrote The King’s English – A Guide to Modern Usage, which is an outstanding book, just like all his magnum opera, he is in fact my absolute favorite author, in this Guide, we see that he thinks like Orwell, there are differences, obviously, but the same objections are there, brevity is paramount for both

 

One of the examples from The King’s English regards ‘infamous’, one of the words that have lost their meaning, people use it as famous, so the confusion is such that you could no longer use it- in our language, we have ‘ca si’, used in the wrong way by more than 90%, and ergo it will be changed to became the norm

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-kings-english-guide-to-modern-usage.html in the present, Politics and The English Language have been transformed, mutilated by Orange Woland and his MAGA crowd, adoration is now the norm, and we are getting in libidinous, abject territory, with Stalinist language

 

this leader of the free world is contemptible, in many ways he reflects the ‘progress’ made by what used to be the ‘greatest democracy in the world’ – this is where I should veer into what may become a habit, of writing about my past, forget the note, what I had to say is already finished so here we have a few lines on my ‘American experience’

I used to work for AT&T, and there are some things on this at the end of this, so they took us once for training and ‘team building’ at their American headquarters, in the days when long distance calling was a cash cow, as these calls became free, that whole division, and me with it, went down and disintegrated completely

 

The other occasion for a long stay in America was the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, when they asked for volunteers – they did not pay salary, but covered lodging and food, plus travel – and I went to New York first, and then with Greyhound to Washington, stopped in a hostel, and again by bus all the way to the Olympic city

I have tried, though not franticly, to get a job with AT&T in the US, and despite being upset because I did not get one, now that I see what is going on, with ICE, troops in cities, I think of my sister, who is a doctor in Chicago, and feel that Romania is better on many counts than the US, clearly way above the MAGA lands…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’