Glottal Stop
I love the way you speak,
I’d never seek to mock its cocky tone.
Your fully-glottled cant
Ain’t mine to grant, it’s yours and all your own.
Ignore the RP snob
Who wants to rob your patois of its melody,
And claim it’s just the vogue,
Your burnished brogue, and not your self-identity.
So know that I in no-way disrespect
Your tongue as somehow incorrect
When I request that you select
Your speech with special care.
It’s not your vowels, for they’re your glory,
Nor your consonants abhor me –
Yet the needs of oratory
Cause us to beware.
There is, I say, a world apart
Between the rhythms we employ
In casual chat and speaking smart,
And knowing when the wrong will cloy.
And when it comes to rhetoric,
There comes a need for clarity –
Don’t change you accent, let it stick,
Just punch-in those plosives, and ring-out that final G.
Rhyming Couplets 