Gove and the Grammar of the Past
The furore over Michael Gove's plans for the English curriculum shows our collective amnesia over our rich sources of literature and history, writes Paul Lay.
History Today, like any serious publication, tries to follow the principles of clarity and comprehension laid down in George Orwell’s 1946 essay, ‘Politics and the English Language’. Its rules – favouring the active over the passive, short words over long ones, the avoidance of cliche and jargon and a preference for the Anglo-Saxon over the Romance – have become standard. Yet a recent, somewhat contrived, spat between the Education Secretary Michael Gove and his many critics in the media and academe highlighted the shortcomings of what we might call ‘vulgar Orwellism’ and its malign effect on students’ engagement with the ‘heightened’ language of our past.
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