What's a Jabber?
"Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse."
~ George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"
My fellow writers, do not sleep on your words. You do a disservice to yourself, your readers, and the language you profess to love.
Reading this article last year was a revelation, and has changed my approach to writing. Even as I write, I'm fighting back the inclination to resort to figures of speech that have been done to death and run into the ground. In the first sentence of this paragraph, I had to stop myself, with considerable effort, from saying that "reading this article last year was eye opening."
As useful as figures of speech and idioms are, for what are they but shared cultural memes, Orwell goes into detail how the average English speaker is unable to express him or herself in a concise manner without the aid of certain choice phrases. This very overreliance stifles our ability to think for ourselves. Much as the citizens of Orwell's dystopian government in 1984, we've become victim to a form of doublespeak brought upon by our own laziness. See how long you can go without falling back on these ready-made TV dinners, and the severity of the problem becomes evident.
Though I don't agree with all of his points, seeing as how this was written 70 years ago, a great deal of this still resonates to this day. However, his paragraph on pretentious diction is particularly amusing. While denouncing the usage of overly verbose language, this paragraph might as well be wrapped in a cummerbund and sporting a monocle.
But I digress. If you're a writer, I recommend that you check out the article. You may disagree with some of what's said (as I do), but the core ideas are edifying and will only sharpen your writing. And if you're too lazy to take the time to read through the whole essay, he conveniently summarizes his essay in 6 points:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.