Time

Anyone who's read the commentary surrounding the news of the NSA's PRISM program knows that George Orwell remains ubiquitous decades after his death. TV pundits, editorial writers, and the average Twitter user can all agree: The government's domestic spying is "Orwellian," an example of "Big Brother."

People mention Orwell in this context to suggest that the writer of Animal Farm and 1984 would disapprove of the activities that Edward Snowden made public. And people may well be right about that. But Orwell would likely disapprove of the use--the overuse--of his name.

That's because Orwell crusaded against clichés like few public figures have before or since. As he said in his widely cited 1946 writing treatise Politics and the English Language: "Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print."

Long before the NSA story broke, Orwell's namesake became exactly the kind of figure of speech he hated. Examples abound. A 2012 Forbes attack on the Affordable Care Act asked readers to "consider the Orwellian character of Obamacare's official name." A Common Dreams press releases included Happy Meals within the realm of "McDonald's Orwellian manipulations." In March, a beverage-industry rep was quoted as saying that "George Orwell would roll over in his grave" over Michael Bloomberg's soda-size policing. Each scenario has little in common with the others, yet all are, at least according to invokers, "Orwellian."