There was once a book, one that I learned about in school. Granted, when I first went to school back in the 1960s, the world was a different place. While it was beginning to shift and change, language was still fairly static. That’s no longer the case.

George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, or 1984 in 1949, which compared to when I began school could be considered the Dark Ages. The name he was given at birth (in 1903) was Eric Blair. I bet you didn’t know that.

Big Brother is watching!

I used to have a blog called Words Matter. I named it that because when I was learning words and how to write them, they really did matter.

Orwell’s book had a profound effect on me when I first read it during my high school years, during the first term of a president named Reagan.  I’ve subsequently read 1984 at least 15 times since then. Continue reading →