Foolish Speak
English lauds as a language for fools.
Who can keep up with th’ extravagant rules?
Professors and teachers must practice and twitter,
So students and others can suck til they quit ‘er.
Diction is dandy; syntax, sexlacious;
Commas are overly used and contagious.
A semi-colon certainly seems semi-stoppy,
While periods punctuate prose á la choppy.
Apostrophes thoroughly trump and elude
Even the smarty-pants programmer dudes.
Copyeditors clean up and make merry
Even the ugliest copy contrary.
Where in the quotes do you put the full stop?
Within or without? Either, neither, or what?
What about commas, questions, and complaints?
Exclamations, too, are surreptitiously quaint.
English lauds as a language for fools.
Why wouldn’t you want to play dictionary duels?
English, I say, is for language-law lovers.
Its rules are circuitous—under the covers.
