Status Quo of Status Quo
A Critique of George Orwell’s Critique
A courageous adventurer steps forth to the thesis! Caveat emptor, or buyer beware, the essay may seem treacherous at first glance, however the traveler perseveres forth! An accolade in learning about the deceptiveness in the English language lies at the end of the study.
This type of writing has long been critiqued by Eric Arthur Blair, a.k.a George Orwell. He believed that foreign phrases have started to pop up into English prose because writers think they give a sense of culture and elegance to their writing and are superior to their respective Anglo-Saxon words, when they should not have been used in the first place. Besides the useful abbreviations like etc. and e.g., he believed that there was no real use for common foreign phrases in the English language, as they only make writing more pretentious. One of the Latin phrases mentioned in his writing Politics and the English Language was “status quo,” a word meaning the existing state of affairs with respect to social and economic issues. This essay will compare the usage of the phrase “status quo” in a critique written in the 19th century with a scholarly article written in 2018.
The first article written in 1844 is Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, written by Karl Marx. He mainly uses the phrase “status quo” when talking about the German state of affairs, which is not pretentious as it is gives the best and most efficient description of the idea. However, he does use many more Latin phrases like “oratio pro aris et focis,” and also includes French in his writing with “partie honteuse,” “ancien régime,” and “ la hauteur des principles.” He follows these phrases with a definition of what they mean, which is helpful to the reader, but also pretentious and unnecessary. These foreign words could have been omitted in the first place and replaced with English, which would be much clearer to the reader. For example, he uses the the French word “la hauteur des principles” and then follows up with “ — i.e. a revolution which will raises it not only to the official level of modern nations, but to the height of humanity which will be the near future of those nations?” Marx decided to keep the French phrase and the definition of it in his writing, creating his pretentiousness. Karl Marx’s usage of the phrase “status quo” was not pretentious because it was the best descriptor of the idea. However, his usage of other French and Latin phrases was pretentious because he followed them up with a definition and were not even needed in the first place.
The second article, Status-quo management of marine recreational fisheries undermines angler welfare, was written in the summer of 2018 by Joshua K. Abbott, et al. This article mainly used the phrase “status quo” when talking about the management of recreational fisheries. This was the only foreign phrase used in the piece, and was the best descriptor of the idea. After all, the title of the article is about the status quo management. Due to the fact that this was the only foreign phrase used in the article and that there was no other way to define status quo management in an efficient way, this article was not pretentious in using foreign language.
This comparison between the older and newer articles contradicts Orwell’s critique of the English language. Karl Marx’s critique uses a lot of foreign language in an useless way; however, does not use the specific Latin phrase “status quo” in a pretentious way. Joshua K. Abbott’s article does not use any other foreign language except for “status quo,” which is used as it describes the idea the best. This specific example goes against Orwell’s critique in two different ways: the usage of the phrase “status quo” has stayed the same, but the usage of other foreign language has become less pretentious. As the world around us becomes more diverse, it is important to remember that language is what connects all of us together. Using phrases that other people do not understand just to make the speaker sound cultured is not only selfish; it splits people apart. Therefore, it is necessary that we understand how to communicate clearly so that we can create a more diverse world.
