A Thin Veneer

Amos Oz talks about, "the pollution of language, making something sound clean and decent, when it should have been peace and violent."

Well, there's something to get your teeth into, first thing on a Monday morning.  As a writer, I'm fascinated by the function of language.  It's a slippery facility to have at your fingertips.  You might think of that its prime purpose is to communicate thought directly and with clarity, and some of the time that is true, but only some of the time.

Words can also be used to obfuscate, to muddy the waters, an attribute that George Orwell used with eerie prescience in his 1984 portrayal of news speak and double think, where what is stated usually means the opposite. Nowadays politicians and bankers -- anyone in corporate life -- are well-schooled in this means of non-communication.  Oz is describing this misuse of language in critical terms, but I think that it can sometimes be used positively in your writing.  Prose is always richer when there is more than one thing going on at the same time, in this case a kind of linguistic tension between the warp of what is happening and the weft of how you are describing it. Try writing about something base and violent, but see if you can give it a thin veneer of decency, of sanitisation and see what effect that has.  My hunch is that it will give an uncomfortable, sinister edge to your writing -- something that I am sure you will be able to put to good use.