Some folks say that the decades run From one to oh. You know, cos there was no Year Zero and all Oh, how they made the wrong call. They assume we give a toss About the loss of a year. Oh dear oh dear. Listen, all you smug alecs, Fetishising factoids from the abstract void Of cleverer-than-you. Speaking in italics with mouths askew, While ignoring common sense – Stop classifying speech by pounds and pence ! For the only thing that matters by far Are the numbers on the calendar.
These days, I can’t say nothing Till the trolls beneath my bridge Begin their bellyache and huffing At my languer-bloody-widge. Not the swearing… Well, yes, the swearing, But worse – the grammar I’m spewing and tearing And giving a right royal chuffing.
Now typos, sure, my fingers sometimes slip – Though maybe not, I spell as I think best, And damn the wets who need to get a grip, And suss to why we’re unimpressed. Ev’ry hissy, prissy luddite Seems to think they have the right To rule my mother tongue and give me lip.
To ev’ry whinjer of the ritten word, To ev’ry pedant waiting just to pounce, To ev’ry queen with an itch to flounce, To ev’ry bullshitter who’s talking turd: Just who the fuck do you think you are To lecture me what I may say ? To lecture me, a superstar, You constipated popinjay ! These words are mine, and I shall play ! They are my servants, friends and tools, With which to wrench the buggers’ rules.
Map showing which countries are masculine (green) or feminine (purple) in French
Over-Sexed
I’m sure it’s because of my English tongue and my English ears, That it always sounds most odd to me To talk of it as he or she. We haven’t had such talk round here these thousand years – We stopped such arbitrary splits And brought all hes and shes to its.
But were we ever minded to go back to where We see the world as him or her, Then which for each should we prefer ? Is this or that a manly or a feminine affair ? Are dogs all girls and cats all boys ? Who cares ? It’s arbitrary noise !
Like Adam naming ev’ry beast, We then must wander through the earth From brother West to sister East, As if the rocks are giving birth, And sex the sexless mule and yeast, And war and peace and speed and girth – And love…? Now there’s a viper’s nest ! Let’s stick to neuter, that’s the best !
Positive charges And negative spin, Strong verbs and weak verbs With preference baked-in. Group B and Group 2 Subconsciously mocked – Pejorative adjectives, Loaded and cocked. We’re judging the diff’rence From concept to mouth, And neutral assessment Is all heading South.
‘Irregardless’ – I love it ! It drives the pedants wild ! A double-neg that disses regs – A blithe, unruly child. You know just what it means, admit it !, For all you raise a stink – And so we’re never gonna quit it, Irregardless what you think.
“Ever since Robert Newton played Long John Silver in 1950, pirates have all spoken with the same accent.”
– The Dorchester Echo
Curse ye, Robbie Newton ! Curse yer lily-lubbered hide ! For thanks to ye, all pirates be The yokels o’ the crimson sea ! We used-a hail from Luton, Or Nidderdale, or Morningside – But now it’s said we’re born an’ bred In Lynmouth, Lyme an’ Lizard Head.
From the Needle to the Scilly, Round the Bill and up Goonhilly, Fowey to Zoyland, thar we blow From Durdle Door to Westward Ho !
Ye scurvy-livered, timber-shivered blaggard, Robbie Newton ! Ye turned us to a joke, to a’ the folk that we be lootin’ ! Ye’d have us be a parody o’ bushy-bearded mutiny, A pantomime upon the sea, jus’ pussycats freebootin’ – We should be briny soldiers, but who could fear our bands Wi’ these parrots on our shoulders and these hooks upon our hands ? Ye’ve decked us in a strange disguise, wi’ peggy-leg an’ lock-o’-dread, An’ always wi’ the patchy-eyes fore’er a-lookin’ ’skance. We used-a be the buccaneers o’ Buckin’ham an’ Birkenhead, But now we’re jus’ the poxy-pillaged pirates o’ Penzance.
From Portishead to Plymouth Hoe, We’ll drag yer name to ten below. From Brizzle Dock to Davey Jones, We curse your skull an’ cross your bones !
1. Reckfull in my actions, I shall pinge you well alone – My manners may be peccable, but ruthfully they’ve grown. I’ve mantled them from bootsome parts of like and parate form – Deceitless in intention, with an ert and toothfulgorm.
2. I bunk your valid theory, which has gusted my good taste, The nocent may be nocuous, but we are praved and based. My spirit may be delable, my courage may be trepid, But let my mind combobulate, and once more I am crepit.
3. Feeling good and gruntled, I was ruly in my care, And was looking couth and gainly with my kempt and shevelled hair – “Be mayed by hapfull fortune, and chelant with passion’s thrill – Be feckfull, wieldy and toward, with ept and bashless skill.”
The Audacious Free Will of the Predestined Chrononaut
Into the future we charge, We travellers in time, Past all of the past and into the future. Tachyon trekkers at large, In our own time, From marcher to moocher – But all of us heading in one direction, Through the temporal intersection: Into the future we barge our way, Each and every day.
There’s some say the future already exists And it does ! We’re in it today. This is the future, as this is the past, And the one hold the other in sway. We may like to think that we’re free how we choose, But however we choose it, a future arrives. So best to ignore it and get on with living, Before we have run out of lives.
We are the eyes of the future, Spying on history, Witnessing first-hand the long-dead past. We are the ones who are there, And writing it down, So the future can read it at last. They pay us with hope, from their endless supplies, Of the glories to come if we only choose wise. So the eyes of the long-ago future will see In time with the past yet-to-be.
There’s some say free will is just an illusion And lives are determined and fast. That’s true for the future – their choices are narrowed By what we do now in the past. We may like to think that we’re free how we choose, But however we choose it, we still live our lives. So best to ignore it and get on with living, Before all that future arrives.
English: a right bastard-son of a language – A teenage two-fingers to logical sense. With lucky-dip spelling – a standardless gauge, An anarchist mang’ling our logical cage – We think that we’ve captured it dry on the page With pronouns and adverbs and grammars immense, But this is one battle it’s folly to wage – It breaks ev’ry rule in the end, so dispense\ With these thoughts we can tame it, or even condense – There’s no passive mood in its imperfect tense. It’s waiting to trip us, bamboozle, upstage, And piss on our tenets in nat’ral defence.
English: a beautiful fluke of a toolkit, And we are its masters, and never its slaves. And each time we use it, it’s changed just a little bit, Changed just a little – but should we permit ? Yet if we can follow, it must be legit. So don’t stem the growth and the sparkle it craves, But keep it adapting, surprising, and fit – And bring on the jargon and slang that ‘depraves’, And don’t mourn the umlauts and genders in graves, For this is precisely how Darwin behaves – Red in its verbs and its nouns and its wit. You can’t turn the tide, but you can ride its waves.
Language is languid, it’s lazy at heart – Refusing to change and keeping its calm. Sometimes it’s hazy and falling apart, But let’s view its ticks as a charm. Cos under the surface, its footings keep shifting, Its grammar gets shonky, it’s meanings keep drifting, It’s making it up as it any-old wishes – Till some fish are fish, but some fish are fishes.
