THE COURAGE OF TURTLES - Central Washington University

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Hoagland 6 shell. Though I felt sorry for him, finally I found his unrelenting presence exasperating. I carried him, struggling in a paper bag, across town to the Morton Street Pier on the Hudson. It was August but gray and windy. He was very surprised when I tossed him in; for the first time in our association, I think, he was afraid. He looked afraid as he bobbed about on top of the water, looking up at me from ten feet below. Though we were both accustomed to his resistance and rigidity, seeing him still pitiful, I recognized that I must have done the wrong thing. At least the river was salty, but it was also bottomless; the waves were too rough for him, and the tide was coming in, bumping him against the pilings underneath the pier. Too late, I realized that he wouldn't be able to swim to a peaceful inlet in New Jersey, even if he could figure out which way to swim. But since, short of diving in after him, there was nothing I could do, I walked away.
Orwell 7 GEORGE ORWELL POLITICS AND <strong>THE</strong> ENGLISH LANGUAGE Throughout his career as a journalist, essayist, and novelist, George Orwell (1903- 1950, born Eric Blair) was concerned with political injustice in both totalitarian and democratic governments. Orwell saw the misuse of language as a tool for political oppression. In the following selection, from Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays, Orwell describes the reciprocal relationship between cloudy thought and awkward writing and prescribes ways in which we can both think and write more clearly. Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language—so the argument runs—must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately 2 have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take a drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written. These five passages have not been picked out because they are 3 especially bad—I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen—but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative samples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:
Page 1 and 2: Hoagland 1 EDWARD HOAGLAND THE COUR
Page 3 and 4: Hoagland 3 Turtles cough, burp, whi
Page 5: Hoagland 5 when she rides over the
Page 9 and 10: Orwell 9 Professor Lancelot Hogben
Page 11 and 12: Orwell 11 brought to a satisfactory
Page 13 and 14: Orwell 13 This is a parody, but not
Page 15 and 16: Orwell 15 one utters the responses
Page 17 and 18: Orwell 17 attempt to make written E
Page 19 and 20: Didion 19 JOAN DIDION ON GOING HOME
Page 21 and 22: Didion 21 It is time for the baby's
Page 23 and 24: Eisler 23 sites is that they were s
Page 25 and 26: Eisler 25 goddesses as Demeter, Art
Page 27 and 28: Eisler 27 portions of which did ind
Page 29 and 30: Unger 29 RUSTY UNGER OH, GODDESS! R
Page 31 and 32: Unger 31 Despite these nuances, the
Page 33 and 34: Unger 33 Christopher Hatton, anothe
Page 35 and 36: Unger 35 matching bandanna and exot
Page 37 and 38: Unger 37 growing as a religion and

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