The History of English
In the activity, you’ll read a sentence from the Old Testament’s Ecclesiastes. You will also read George Orwell’s revision of the sentence, which he designed to illustrate bad habits he found in the written work of his time. Carefully compare the two versions of the sentence. Describe what Orwell changed, in terms of word choice and sentence structure, as well as tone and implied purpose or audience. Before you formulate your answer in paragraph form, you might want to take notes (below or elsewhere) comparing the two versions of the sentence in terms of word choice, sentence structure, tone, and implied audience and purpose.
Sentence from Ecclesiastes:
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth.
Orwell’s revision in “modern English of the worst sort”:
Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
