Blair's Rules of Writing

I thought I would paste these "rules" provided by Eric Blair (aka George Orwell), given that I find myself obsessed with becoming a better writer. They were cut and pasted from the Wikipedia article. I am sure I have read this book/essay, but I don't have a copy near at hand.

The rules seem somewhat inadequate to me. They are injunctions that might be given to beginning writing students in a public school, usually for those who are under the age of 18. The cultivation of a style is much more subtle, and there are many roads to success.

For example, the injunction to rely on common, every-day English words seems somewhat provincial to me. It pares back the lavish growth with the exuberant vegetation and the beautiful and vibrant blooms of the rose bush to that of the hard, bare roots. It seems somewhat too utilitarian in focus. We are not writing software where efficiency is of the essence. We are painting with a brush on a variety of canvasses and an infinite palette.

I will not be limited to a repertoire of ones and zeros, as with any digital language.

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In "Politics and the English Language", Orwell provides six rules for writers:

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

—George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, Horizon, April 1946