"Occupational Disease: Verbal Inflation,"

In the above article, Barzun writes, "For the last fifty years, American Education has pursued a policy of overstatement about its role and substance; it has lived by continual exaggeration of what it is and what it can do. The medium naturally is words, words misunderstood and misapplied--it is verbal inflation" (104). Barzun's "verbal inflation" is comparable to Orwell's "pretentious diction" or "meaningless words," words which dress up simple statements with arrogant pomposity and political intent.

In his "Occupational Disease: Verbal Inflation," Barzun puts examples of such pomposity into "educationalese" phraseology: "visual [or musical] literacy," "social studies enrichment," "engender general creativeness," build ethnic identity," achieve affective education" (106), and so on. His point is not that such concepts lack a certai

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Approximate Word count = 776
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page)