介绍： AI and the English Language
George Orwell closed his 1946 essay“Politics and the English Language”with six rules for writers, the first of which commands:“Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”It is the rule against clichés.
Enter artificial intellig...

介绍： AI and the English Language
George Orwell closed his 1946 essay“Politics and the English Language”with six rules for writers, the first of which commands:“Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”It is the rule against clichés.
Enter artificial intelligence, which can flag clichés by analyzing the frequency at which figures of speech occur in data sets. But replacing clichés with something vivid and original is a harder task. In Orwell’s parlance, large-language models show us what they are used to seeing in print.
AI does this at industrial scale. It produces combinations humans haven’t seen before that lack spirit and coherence. Large language models can spew Mississippi Rivers of data and text, but they struggle to write a log line for a 120-page screenplay, a subtitle for a book, or a few lines of poetry.
But readers don’t need Orwell or Hollywood executives to tell them that“popular”inevitably becomes predictable and dull. Many, though, will crave authentic human writing in the same way they cherish handmade goods more than their mass-produced counterparts.
Orwell wasn’t merely arguing against tired language; he was calling on his fellow English speakers to be clear and sincere. To“let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about.”Find the image that conveys your meaning and resist the borrowed phrase, because“every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.”
Train AI models on 10,000 war memoirs if you like, but they still won’t be able to take to the editorial page the day after Hiroshima. They can’t address a crowd after a tragedy or bear witness to the joys of raising a child. To do that takes humans able to express themselves without reaching for the nearest cliché.
内容拓展
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
《政治与英语语言》是乔治・奥威尔于 1946 年发表的经典杂文。二战结束后，奥威尔注意到政客和知识分子常以空洞、晦涩、委婉的语言掩盖现实、混淆大众判断，由此提出核心论断：语言的腐朽会导致思想的衰退，而思想的混乱又会进一步败坏语言，二者形成恶性循环。文中他分析了书面英语中的多种常见弊病，并提出六条简洁务实的写作原则，倡导清晰、准确、具体的表达。该文将语言修辞与政治现实紧密联系，至今仍被广泛用于写作教学、媒体批评与人文思辨课程。
造句挑战
这篇文章大量使用双词并列平行/排比结构（parallelism），如 predictable and dull，vivid and original，data and text，spirit and coherence等，这类表达既能优化语句韵律，又能互补词义、丰富表意。请试着用这种两词并列的微型排比手法，围绕本篇主题仿写造句。
生词好句
1.close A with B 用B来给A收尾
2.command 英 [kəˈmɑːnd] 美 [kəˈmænd] v. 命令，指令
相比普通的say（说）、argue（主张），command更具权威感、强制性
3.metaphor 英 [ˈmetəfə(r)] 美 [ˈmetəfər] n. 隐喻
4.simile 英 [ˈsɪməli] 美 [ˈsɪməli] n. 明喻
5.print 英 [prɪnt] 美 [prɪnt] n. 印刷品；v. 印刷
print edition 纸质版
6.cliché 英 [ˈkliːʃeɪ] 美 [kliːˈʃeɪ] n. 陈词滥调，老套的比喻或表达
That's such a cliché. 这也太老套了。
clichéd adj. 老套的
The movie is full of clichéd characters. 这部电影里全是一些脸谱化的人物。
7.enter 英 [ˈentə(r)] 美 [ˈentər] v. 登场，出场
Enter Hamlet 哈姆雷特，登场。
8.flag 英 [flæɡ] 美 [flæɡ] v. 标记，标注；n. 旗帜
The text was flagged by the system as a spam. 这条短信被系统标注成了垃圾信息。
9.parlance 英 [ˈpɑːləns] 美 [ˈpɑːrləns] n. 说法，用语，表达方式
in legal parlance 用法律术语来说
in everyday parlance 用日常的话来说