Johnson: Those six little rules (sorry, behind paywall)

Johnson revised version

(i) Avoid using metaphors, similes, or other figures of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Think of fresh ones wherever you can.

(ii) Prefer short words to long ones.

(iii) Try cutting a lot of your word-count, especially those words that add little extra meaning.

(iv) Don’t over-use the passive voice. And whether passive or active, be clear who did what to whom.

(v) Prefer everyday English to foreign, scientific or jargon words.

(vi) Good writing is no place for the tyrant. Never say “never” and always avoid “always”, or at the least handle them with care. Overusing such words is an invitation for critics to hold you to your own impossible standard.

-Johnson (The Economist)

Orwell's original

The problem is the absolute nature of Orwell’s rules. The first five all include either a “never” or an “always”. Critics point out that a strict application of these rules would make for very strange writing.

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

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

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

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

-George Orwell

That's why Orwell himself doesn’t always obey them. Of the tensed transitive verbs in “Politics and the English Language”, at least a fifth are in the passive voice. Indeed, one rears its head in the second paragraph:

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.

It would been easy for Orwell to write this sentence in the active voice:

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which one can avoid if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.

https://www.economist.com/prospero/2013/07/29/johnson-those-six-little-rules