Critical commentary of “Thanks for the vegan idioms, Peta

but there are bigger fish to fry” by Jessica Brown

“Thanks for the vegan idioms, Peta but there are bigger fish to fry” is an article from the Guardian
written by Jessica Brown on the 6 December 2018. Jessica Brown who is a vegetarian striving to be
vegan, doesn’t take the side of vegans/Peta and is against the idea of reformulating common English
phrases that have been common phrases for so long. Peta states that many common phrases in the
English language perpetuate violence towards animals so they want to rephrase them into plant-
based phrases.

The title of the article “Thanks for the vegan idioms, Peta, but there are bigger fish to fry” is a
comedic dig towards Peta who would most likely find this offensive. Jessica Brown uses a comedic
style of writing to remove all the seriousness from the article while still transmitting her ideas to the
readers and make it easier for the reader to relate to what she is saying. Jessica Browns point of
view is not neutral and is against Peta trying to change the idioms into something that won’t
“offend” vegans. “we cant just go cold Tofurky” She uses Petas idiom ironically to reenforce her idea
that changing idioms would do more harm than good. The last sentence “There are much bigger fish
to fry” relates back to the title of the article which is a continuation of the mockery of Peta that has
been constant throughout the article. Jessica Brown states that In the UK 7% of people are vegan
and 93% are non-vegan and that veganism isn’t ingrained enough in the UK to justify changing the
English language.

She uses brackets to make her more involved with her point which continues the theme of making
herself relatable to the reader which reenforces the point she puts forward to the reader. She does
this in paragraph two where she criticises the changes made to “flog a dead horse” into “feed a fed
horse” as she deemed it as ineffective and still cruel sounding but more importantly in the brackets
we understand her own opinion on this specific point which strengthens the relationship made
between the writer and the reader which therefore makes her more trustworthy and makes her
article more believable. She demonstrates this once again in paragraph four when she adds the aside
“I’m a veggie striving to be a vegan” she tells the reader that she is a vegetarian which once again is
telling the reader what she’s thinking which strengths the writer reader bond, she also strengthens
her argumentation by letting the reader know that she herself is striving to be a vegan. The readers
can therefor put more trust in the article because “the striving vegan” is criticizing a group that she
relates to. Since Jessica Brown has opened up to the readers using the brackets she uses informal
language like “veggie” to continue this close almost friendly reader writer bond, once again making
her more trustworthy.

This article written by Jessica Brown could be argued to be intended for both vegan and non-vegan
people, but as she deems the 7% of vegans to be insignificant compared to the 97% of non-vegans it
is quite unlikely that it is written for the vegans. The article is also mostly intended for the working
class due to the fact that Jessica Brown uses a comedic affect to transmit her ideas to the reader,
which makes it easier for the reader to relate to what she is saying.

In conclusion Jessica Brown is against the reconstruction of the common English phrases, she uses
comedic style of writing and brackets with her own opinion to make her closer to the reader and
therefore more trustworthy. The article can be read by anyone but it is written for the non-vegans as
Jessica Brown views the 7% of vegans to be insignificant.