The Pitfalls of Linguistic Laziness

Language skills are, like, you know, dying.

Late American author David Foster Wallace once quipped that “listening to most people’s public English feels like watching somebody use a Stradivarius to pound nails.” And while that sentiment might strike a chord with the average high school teacher, the vast majority of American English speakers remain oblivious to the atrocities that are being committed against our language with startling frequency. Careful attention to the spoken word in nearly any non-academic setting will reveal that many rules of usage and syntax are often bent, and that all the rest are ignored completely.

 Unlike Mr. Wallace, a self-styled Grammar Snoot who took serious offense at dangling participles and misplaced hyphens, I can turn a blind eye to the sign in the grocery store that reads “10 Items or Less.” I barely even notice anymore when a friend asks me if I want to go to the game “with Matt and I” or uses “comprised of” when he means “composed of.” And I can even listen to my sister talk about “laying out on the beach” without correcting her or thinking less of her as a person. But there is one offense against usage that I find so egregious, so mind-numbingly common in our culture, that I refuse to tolerate it any longer.

Despite the aforementioned rules of usage and syntax, two generations of Americans think it perfectly acceptable to insert the word ‘like’ indiscriminately into conversation. A given person between the ages of 3 and 30 is liable to say ‘like’ once every ten seconds while speaking. If you doubt this statistic, I recommend that you find the nearest teenager talking on a cell phone and start counting. You will find my estimate to be very conservative.

‘Like’ has become the all-purpose filler word of choice for the current age. Careless tongues pepper it into speech wherever there is space: one moment it is an adjective, then the next it becomes an adverb, then a preposition, then a conjunction, and then parts of speech which were hitherto nonexistent. It is now commonplace to hear someone introduce quotations with the word ‘like,’ as in “she was like ‘…’ and then I was like ‘...’ and then he was like ‘...’” and so on. These habits subvert all previously established meanings and uses of the word and replace them with the following two tenets: Do you struggle when trying to summon the correct word in speech? Use ‘like!’ Would you prefer to say a lot of words, but you don’t have many thoughts to accompany them? Use ‘like!’

Not unlike a pox on the English language, ‘like’ has crept into our everyday idiom, slowly wasting away the collective articulation of the populace and reducing an entire nation to employing the verbiage of Valley Girls. It pervades the entertainment industry, news outlets, and even professional settings. Worst of all, it has rendered countless individuals unable to express their thoughts precisely.

Take, for example, the sentence “I have a master’s degree in communication.” Compare this to the decidedly more ambiguous sentence “I have, like, a master’s degree in communication.” If you say that you have “like” a degree in communication, then you are not saying that you have a degree in communication at all. You are effectively saying something entirely different. Perhaps you have something akin to a degree, but you do not in fact have a degree, or you simply would have said so. This is a silly example, and I sincerely hope that no accredited university would confer a higher-level degree on someone who would use the second sentence, but it illustrates my point. If you use ‘like’ like a lot, you don’t like sound all that like intelligent.

Equally irritating is the tendency to replace ‘like’ with ‘you know.’ Even though this might mask the irritating recurrence of ‘like,’ do not be deceived. It is simply a variation on the same stall tactic. I am appalled by how often I hear something along the lines of “I just, like, decided to, you know, [action verb] and, like, you know...” No, sorry. I don’t know. Perhaps you might care to complete your thought, and then we can determine what I do and do not know.

 But all hope is not yet lost. With careful attention and effort, any English speaker can help to combat the spread of this dialectal disease. If you simply focus on not using ‘like’ as a filler word, you will find that the habit is actually quite easy to break. Rather than saying ‘like’ to buy time or to fill empty space in conversation, simply say nothing. Initially, it will seem awkward to find yourself suddenly bereft of a catch-all pause word, and you will certainly be tempted to slip back into the pattern. But after a few weeks of being ‘like’-free, you too will begin to notice the maddening regularity with which everyone around you uses the word. You might not yet be on David Foster Wallace’s level of Snootitude, but at least you will give that poor Stradivarius one less nail to pound. 

All Aboard the Bandwagon

Would anybody care to jump on the Denver Broncos bandwagon with me? There’s plenty of room, especially now that Tim Tebow is in New York.

Ever since I first learned of the existence of the National Football League, I have been a fan of Peyton Manning. As any football aficionado will tell you, the guy is a walking playbook with a rocket arm and old-fashioned home-grown charm. He reads any defense like a map, threads the needle against even the tightest coverage, and can rattle off more audibles than an auctioneer during his forty-second pre-snap routines. So when Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay announced in March of this year that Manning was to be released from his contract, I naturally had a small identity crisis. This was the organization that Manning had led to eleven playoff bids and two Super Bowl appearances during his fourteen-year tenure, and the same team that I had pulled for since the tender age of seven.

What am I to do now with just two months left before the first kickoff of the season? I rooted for the Colts during the best of times (a crushing victory over the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI) and the worst of times (the 2011 season featuring a sidelined Manning and a 2-14 record). Should I stick with my guns and watch a burgeoning new roster helmed by Andrew Luck, the most celebrated rising NFL quarterback since Manning himself? Or should I abandon my team and follow the four-time league MVP to the Mile High City?

While pondering this momentous decision, I have contemplated the role of the bandwagon fan in the intense and often unforgiving crucible of competitive sports. We all know the bandwagoners. Following any major sporting event, they will invariably flood every known social network with updates proclaiming allegiance to the team that is currently holding the trophy. An alarming number of those friends on Facebook who last year waxed poetic about the Packers and the Mavericks are suddenly fans of the Giants and the Heat. Even in my hometown in coastal South Carolina, where most people have never seen ice, much less a game of professional hockey, I saw dozens of Tweets following Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals from acquaintances who proclaimed themselves fans of the Los Angeles Kings.

To most actual die-hard sports fanatics, bandwagoners are, of course, anathema. No self-respecting devotee of the Kings, who waited nineteen years to play in a Finals pairing and forty-six years to win their first championship, will sit idly by and watch as hockey ignoramuses from the Deep South try to lay claim to their long-awaited success. For true fans, following a team is about more than just winning. To them, fandom is about sharing in every facet of an organization’s performance, from the highest highs to the lowest lows. They stick with their team even when they are down and out, so that when fortune finally does smile on them, seeing that championship banner hoisted up in their home arena is that much sweeter. And because of the bandwagoners, those true fans can no longer content themselves with simply cheering for their favorite teams. They must sound trumpets and shoot off flares to rise above the noise of Tweets and Facebook statuses and announce that they have in fact been fans all along.

 But surely I, who have legitimately felt the pains and ecstasies of Colts fandom, am not in the same category as those bandwagoners who invite the derision of avid sports nuts. Am I? Is it so wrong for me to remain loyal to the quarterback who first sparked my interest in football? Even the impassioned Colts disciples who line the stands of Lucas Oil Stadium will readily acknowledge that it is the house that Peyton built. Must I remain forever a supporter of the same team to avoid scorn from the sports community?

At long last, my conclusion is a resounding no. In an age in which players display no sense of fidelity to their teams (see LeBron James and “The Decision” or Albert Pujols’ egotistic departure from St. Louis), and teams display no fidelity to their fan bases (see the Seattle SuperSonics’ move to Oklahoma City and similar musical chairs by franchises), I can think of no reason for fans to hold each other to the standard of never changing allegiances ever. At the end of the day, professional sports exist purely for the purpose of entertainment. Yes, it may be admirable to be entertained by the same organization for an extended period of time, but ultimately I see no harm in switching loyalties, as long as the switch is done tastefully.

In the end, taste is what differentiates a bandwagoner from a fan in transition. If you recently announced to the world that you are a huge fan of Webb Simpson following his U.S. Open victory, please do not proclaim your undying support for the golfer who lifts the Claret Jug at next week’s Open Championship. If you hail from Boston, you have no business spouting how much you love the Yankees, no matter how good their record is coming out of the All Star break. And if you live in Philadelphia, please do not walk outside sporting Eli Manning’s jersey and a Super Bowl XLVI Champions cap. Certain lines are simply not meant to be crossed, even if it is just a game.

Come football season, I will be watching Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos on Sundays, and in the privacy of my own home I will cheer at every touchdown and groan at every interception. And if by some miracle they take home the Lombardi Trophy, I may even do a victory dance in my living room. But I certainly won’t be Tweeting about it. 

Independence Day, and Remembering the Heroes of the Past

If you are anything like the typical American, you will spend tomorrow out in the sun, preferably near the closest body of water, clad in some combination of red, white, and blue. At least two of your meals will consist of hamburgers and hotdogs (and maybe a good domestic beer), and you will conclude the day by watching a fireworks display, all in honor of the 236^th anniversary of our Founding Fathers’ declaration of independence for these United States.

We are quick to recognize the bravery and fortitude of those men who established our nation, and rightfully so, but amid the parades and pyrotechnics we often forget an equally important event which shaped the narrative of the United States. On this date in 1863, two American armies clashed outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the third consecutive day of hostilities. Those three days marked the bloodiest single battle in American history, resulting in 50,000 casualties between the two forces, including 8,000 dead. Each of those casualties was sustained by an American and inflicted by an American. They were all men who went to war to fight for their ideology on both sides, and it is not difficult to imagine that many of them heard the exhortations of our Founding Fathers ringing in their ears as they took up arms to defend their notions of liberty.

Gettysburg was the strategic turning point of the eastern theater of the American Civil War and is considered by many to be the high-water mark of Confederate efforts to gain independence from the Union. The aftermath of that bloody encounter would ultimately touch the life of every American, U.S. or Confederate, black or white, freed or enslaved. It would stem the tide of the most devastating conflict our country has ever seen, one which claimed the lives of more than 620,000 soldiers. Of that number, 260,000 men died for liberty from the Union, and 360,000 others gave their lives to preserve the liberties established through Union.

In 2012, one hundred and forty-nine years after the guns fell silent on Cemetery Ridge and rain washed the blood-soaked fields of Gettysburg, we would do well to remember the lesson of the men who laid down their lives there. It is a lesson that those survivors of the war knew too well. Many returned home to lands ravaged by combat and hunger, where nearly a quarter of a generation of young men had been annihilated. They witnessed firsthand the horrific consequences of partisanship, and they hoped that those consequences would leave an indelible mark on our nation, so that her people might never forget the dire repercussions of division.

And yet today, the mark left by the Civil War seems to have faded from memory as partisanship remains a familiar aspect of the American identity. From divisive debates on the state of our government’s sovereign debt to backlash against tax cuts and decisions on health care legislation, we the people appear to have forgotten that a house divided cannot stand.

Amid times of political strife and tension between socioeconomic groups, we Americans can gain from remembering the sobering horror that those soldiers faced on the field of battle in 1863. They drank the bitterest dregs of disunion, and by their bloodshed they reaffirmed that we are, and forever shall be, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So as you eat your hamburger and drink your cold domestic lager, listen carefully to the roar of the fireworks, and perhaps you might hear the rumble of artillery fire rolling across the fields of Gettysburg, and below it the exhortations of our Founding Fathers ringing in your ears.