But, my gosh, he still has lines that galvanize me like a rallying cry! He begins this way:

"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."

And he ends, magnificently, this way:

"I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought ... If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy ... when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself ... Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits ... "

-- Ladies and gentlemen, George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language."⁽⁷⁾

The United Kingdom -- Maher and Cutts
Now we come to the plain language pioneers who emerged in our own lifetimes. I am not going to take this brief history past 1990, because many of the modern pioneers are in this room and can tell their own stories better than I could. But I do want to tell you a little about the last 35 years or so of the plain language movement.

Chrissie Maher is a romantic figure for me. Her early community journalism and Plain English Campaign in England inspired many young literacy workers and plain language advocates in Canada during the 1970s and early 1980s. [I would like at this time to welcome her son, George Maher, and his presentation partner John Wild to this gathering.]

Chrissie grew up in the north of England and left school as a young teen to help support a large family, when the coal industry was failing. She went to night school to get more literacy with the advice and support of her employer.