I consider this essay, "The Elements of Style", and "Simple and Direct" by Jacques Barzun to be the Holy Trinity of guidance on clear, straightforward writing.
Although an interesting essay, I find it a bit ironic that Orwell violates some of his own guidelines in it.
Let's face it, corporate-speak and government-speak sucks.
Writing can be a high bandwidth form of communication. You must write clearly and concisely to most efficiently transfer your ideas to the reader's mind.
If your reader doesn't understand what you've written, then you've failed at writing's primary purpose: communication.
"(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active."
In the following passage Orwell is describing a particular type of bad writing. Notice however that every single sentence is passive. Notice especially the first sentence. It contains an irony bomb.
"In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth."
