[Prestidigitweeze]

In reviewing The Economist Style Guide while working on a British article, I happened to reread George Orwell's "six elementary rules" for style in the introduction:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print [or other media].
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut out a word, 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.

Five of the rules are de rigueur for nearly everyone, but I wonder how many of us who learned to write from television, pop music and the web actually follow the first.