George Orwell on clear writing

George Orwell wrote this nice essay about obfuscated writing and how to avoid it. He was responding to the political writing culture of his time (1946).

I used to worry about my writing on this blog, but nowadays I write crappy first drafts. After using Wordle to look for common words in my blog, I have become more vigilant about excising superfluous words, such as "just." I like how blog writing has made me throw words on a page without worry, but I would like to practice good writing now and then. As Orwell says, bad writing comes from laziness. Eventually bad writing leads to poor thinking, even for bright people. I'd like to avoid that result.