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If you write for a living, whether novels, jingles or emails to your boss, this may be the best thing you can read this year:

George Orwell’s Rules for Effective Writing

If you can’t be bothered to follow the link (although you should since the post citing Orwell’s 1946 essay is quite good), then here they are, as written by the man himself:

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

For examples of these rules in action, pick up any collection of Hemingway short stories and read a few. (Not a bad way to spend a few hours in any event).

I for one know that I am guilty of breaking a few of these rules with regularity. I can’t resist tossing in the 25-cent word once in a while. Next time around, I think I’ll think twice about it.