In conversations about social media, online activity, and entertainment standards, people like to talk about how much "content" they "consume."

I've grown to hate these two words. "Content" is such a general term that we may as well say "things." ("I've been looking at a lot of things online." “Our marketing strategy is to produce a lot of things.") As for "consume," it makes me think of indiscriminate gobbling, more appropriate for a monster or forest fire than a person.

Imagine what George Orwell would have made of these vague metaphors. In his essay, " Politics and the English Language ," he rants at length about modern writing, arguing that such vagueness is actually dangerous:

By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your m

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