[basil ransome-davies]

Just an Irish gypsy with an eclectic vocabulary. Jayne's alternative for 'I mind' is spot-on & has gone into my submitted entry, which now reads:


No. 2635: Mea culpa

Why oh why has no one learned the lesson?
The masses only want illicit thrills.
They lack the taste for civilised expression
And can't acquire the proper language skills.

Time was when my instructions would elicit
Well-formed responses, courteously meant,
From banks and such. Good English, how I miss it.
Now keyboard monkeys rule. A sad descent.

My so-called secretary, for example,
Who now and then will deign to type a letter,
Writes barbarous solecisms (here's a sample:
'Our buisness gols'), but I can't get a better.

'There's something rotten,' quoth the gloomy Dane.
He might have meant our culture. Heavy-hearted,
I watch the chav-speak spread and standards wane
hourly, while as for tax – don't get me started!

[Roger Slater]

Basil, that's good, but I don't see lessen or dissent in it -- maybe I'm blind or my first coffee has not kicked in. Don't you need those words?

[Jayne Osborn]

You're right, Roger. Well spotted.

Thanks for accepting my suggestion, Bazza.
May I now be so bold as to say I'm not too keen on the last line? I think you can do better than 'hourly, while as for tax'
I also think the penultimate line would stand ok, with a full stop. Then you could continue:
And as for......(something else) .....don't get me started!

When you say 'submitted entry', do you mean you've sent it already? I hope not, as you've ------- two words out!

[Jayne Osborn]

Is there anybody there?

There are still 3 days left for submission to The Spectator. Has everyone deserted this thread? I've gone for 'the other side of the coin', trying to steer away from the obvious - but I'm thinking that perhaps no-one will even see it. C'est la vie!

I really need to lessen my depression,
from thinking of tomorrow’s English lesson.
We’re doing Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Dane; I dread it.
I’d swear our teacher hasn’t even read it!

She’ll deign to tell the class she can’t elicit
the right responses from us. (No explicit
instructions.) ‘Summerize’ was on the whiteboard.
At least, if she could spell, she’d hit the right chord.

It’s dishonest, it’s illicit, that she’s ‘teaching’.
Is it any bloody wonder we’re not reaching
our potential? We dissent – to no avail, though –
we’ve been let down by ineptitude; we’ll fail. So…

the mass descent, decline, in teaching grammar,
and punctuation, spelling, makes us clamour
for erudition in our nation's schools.
We might be kids; not all of us are fools.

[John Whitworth]

Oh, I think that has an excellent chance, Jayne. Some of our best horses don't like to run in public. Superstition, doubtless!

[FOsen]

this is meant to be sung to the below-mentioned tune . . . .

Cole Porter once lamented our descent,
“Anything Goes,” he joked, before it went.
Pow—it’s really gone now.

Illicit’s so explicit, internet
means no one need be literate
elicit-ing porn—all is forborne.

When any little Harry, Dick or Jane
can curse much worse than Vandal, Hun or Dane,
the lesson is clear—our end’s very near.

The melancholy deign to prophesy
doom, but allow me to dissent, if I
may propose—everything goes:

Bad authors lessen, worsen, can’t succeed
writing bad books for those who cannot read,
any day—they’ll all go away.

Frank