A chance discovery of an old favourite in a secondhand bookshop provided the impetus for this contribution to the language series  by Nurturing Potential's Managing Editor.

Harold Macmillan famously said that a foreign secretary's life was "forever poised between a cliché and an indiscretion".  No more so than that of a magazine editor, Joe Sinclair ventures to suggest.  Indeed, in the case of the latter, he has continually to steer a course between the clichés and the indiscretions of all his contributors.

So, a pretty apposite subject for our editor, and he has used the opportunity to reintroduce readers to the delights of Sir Ernest Gowers or (in the unlikely event that they have not previously made his acquaintance) to thrill them with this introduction to his work.

At the end of the year that marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of George Orwell, and inspired by his research on clichés that brought a reminder of a famed Orwellian article, our editor decided to give the article an airing.  Rather like the book by Gowers, it is as fresh today as when it was written.  1946 was obviously an annus mirabilis for grammarians.

Here then is a link to the entire article (click on the heading) of which the most famous and oft-quoted section is probably Orwell's stylistic injunctions:

• Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

• Never use a long word where a short one will do.

• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

• Never use the passive where you can use the active.

• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.