Way back in 1946, George Orwell translated a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes into what he called “modern English.”
Here’s the original:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
And here’s the revision:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
Is it me, or does the latter remind you of the jargon-laced drivel that increasingly emanates from every crevice of corporate America today?
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