Politics of Goof and Bad Writing free essay sample

In his first inaugural address, George bush displays bad writing through the use of meaningless words, dying metaphors and verbal false limbs and as a result creates a bored audience. Meaningless words or phrases are accumulated throughout each paragraph of the Bushs speech, like our nations has sometimes halted or faith in freedom and democracy. These words are not meaningless but when used in the context of a political speech, they are repeated so many times by so many politicians that they lose meaning to the audience causing a less powerful speech. Secondly, Bushs statement, Americas faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations is entirely made up of dying metaphors which make the speech loose vividness. Bush repeats the offense by stating, some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentors touch or a pastors prayer. We will write a custom essay sample on Politics of Goof and Bad Writing or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Finally, Bush uses verbal false limbs like, which give direction to or to call for, to add information or more words to the speech but in turn they take away from the purpose of the speech. Therefore, Bushs use of meaningless words, dying metaphors and verbal false limbs results in a inattentive audience. In contrast, good writing uses parallelism, imagery, rhythm ,evokes emotion and is tied together with precise words that are simple yet authoritative. Even at the beginning of his acceptance speech of 2012, Obama exemplifies these traits by stating, Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone Whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference. The sentence shows parallelism through the repetition of equally weighted phrases and paints a mental image of the people of America on the streets of their country. Also alliteration is shown with the words pounded, pavement, picked and phone. With the use of parallel structure in his speech, the poetic rhythm that Obama is known for can be heard to give his speech more emphasis and give the ending a climatic build up. Obama goes on to say, I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America. These sentences not only embody the characteristics of good writing but flood the audience with emotion due to respect for their president and their country and result in an inspirational and attentive mood. In summary, Obama effectively utilizes good writing techniques, such as parallelism, imagery, rhythm and emotion, to empower and inspire the country he runs. In conclusion, bad writing techniques such as meaningless words, dying metaphors and verbal false limbs used frequently result in an unclear message and a dull, disengaging speech; good writing expertly uses parallelism, imagery, rhythm and evokes emotion to create a clear message and inspire the audience. George Orwell states in his essay Politics and the English Language, language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. Politics is the art of persuading people on a topic or an individual level but in order to persuade, language and writing should be used to express the point clearly rather than hide the point ambiguously.