The following paper is my re-write for assignment two. I focused on the author’s persona and ethos.

The Like Virus

            On August 2001 an essays, “The Like Virus” by David Grambs appeared in The Vocabula Review. The essay highlights the facts that the word “like” has become a permanent flaw in the English language. Everyone from teenagers to adults allow the word “like” to infest their every day dialogue without any hesitation. In the article “The Like Virus”, Grambs tries to portray himself as a scholar of the English Language that is truly concerned for the purity of the English language, but through carefully dissecting his language it is revealed that he is basically disgusted by the whole obsession of like.

Humans have a tendency to use specific worlds and phrases in order to project themselves a certain way. People try to disguise themselves in speeches, conversations and even essays. This is called a “persona”, a persona can be described as a aspect of someone’s character that is presented to other. In this article, “The Like Virus” David Grambs tries to portray himself as someone who is deeply concerned with the way “like” is ruining the precious English language. Ge explains the obsessions with “like” as something that will never change because “ of what all those likes replace or avoid… an increasingly lazy recourse to choppy, bland, dysfunctional English.” This strong statement shows how Grambs really thinks that the overuse of the world “like” is ruining the English language and making it seem dysfunctional. Saying that a language is “dysfunctional” is a very strong statement. Dysfunctional means something that is not operating or functioning properly. For a language that has been revised and changed for so many ears to be called dysfunctional is a slap in the face, which shows how strongly he feels about “like” ruining the English language. He then goes on to touch on the fact that using “like” shows the inability or reluctance to use the basic elements of the English syntax. Basically saying that using the word “like” shows “stupidity” because it means someone’s can’t use the basic elements of English, which involve using sentences with dependent clauses and with verbs of more then one tense. In making this claim he uses the world “rich” to describe the English language, showing how he believes that without the world “like” English is an affluent beautiful language. Lastly he states that he “fears by noting that it is a singly world…. that most instantly identifies or characterizes an American anywhere in the world.” This statement reveals that out of everything he is mostly afraid of being known as the nation that over uses “like”, because to him “like” means laziness, and is a throat blocking tendency which is just embarrassing.

Although David Grambs wants the reader to believe that he is just concerned about the English language through dissecting the text it is revealed that he has an Ethos. Ethos is basically the authors’ true feelings after they take off the mask off their persona. In the article “The Like Virus” Grambs ethos is really just a disgusted man on a rant about one single “trendy” world.

One-way David Grambs shows his disgust is by never actually saying the world “like”. Through out the whole article Grambs refers to “like” as the “L-word” or the “like virus”. He turns the word “like” into a unspoken word on the same level as the “N-word” or “ the F-word”, which is pretty extreme, proving that he sees the word as a profane. He goes on saying that a teenage girl was even “coughing up the viral like:, Through this he managed to put the world “like” into he same category as something someone would cough up, comparing it to something like flum. He continues to make statements like the “viral like is far less a legitimate word then a form of coping punctuation, a lame, reflexive stalling tactic for the syntactically changed and uneducated because they are unable to speak and understand the beautiful, rich language of English. Throughout the whole article he uses an alternative world to “like” approximately thirty-six times

David Grambs also shows his ethos of being disgusted by ranting on about how the world “like” is dumbing down our language. Using worlds like “flavorless to describe it. He even asks the question of “why is your generation the first in more than 200 years to have a desperate ongoing need to the single most flavorless four letter communication rest stop?” He over exaggerated the word “like” saying that it is not just a flavorless word but its also one of the single most flavorless four letter words in the world. He continues to describe the word as also being a colorless color. What is a colorless color? Its pointless, which alludes to the fact that he thinks that the word is pointless and useless. Not only does he describe the word as flavorless and colorless but he also questions the intelligence of the generation that is using this word. He states that its basically a hesitation form, “along the lines of us, well, I mean, or um this is a sentence litter… meaningless or interruptive filter locution.” He wonders what it avoids and covers up in someone’s speech or writing, saying that like is comparable or equal to garbage.

Although David Grambs wants to appear as having a certain persona his language truly shoes his ethos. He tries to come off as someone who just cares about the word “like” ruining the English language, but his language shows that he is extremely disgusted with the whole existence of the world “like”.

Citations:

Grambs, David. The Like Virus. N.p.: Vocabula Communications Company,2001.Print.

Photo Credit:http://www.vocabula.com/vrauthorspics.asp