Diacritique
English’s attitude to accents is curious –
I don’t mean Geordie and Scouse,
But those sprinkles of furniture that turn pedants furious
When added (or not) to the house.
A déjà vu of coördination
Or über-pretentious clatter ?
A naïve façade in over-citation,
Or a stick to beat the piñata ?
In a language with only a nodding relation
With sensible phonetics as this,
Then it hardly matters if most of the nation
Give this foreign decoration a miss.
With English, their rôle is recherché at best,
For all some writers may covet –
In English, they just make the page look stressed,
And I doubt they’ll ever be belovèd.
Rhyming Couplets 