Dear Grammar Police. I Hate to do This.

[oneighty]

But I will anyway.

The English language
Is astoundingly
Difficult
For a poet like me.

And it is not fair
It seems to me
That I must cope
With this atrocity.

With verbs and nouns
And adjectives
And dangling participles
Past and present and future words.

It angers me no end
It does.
Lets kill them all
Those grammar rules.

I tear a noun
From off this page
It hits the wall
In my rage.

That nasty verb
Will quickly follow
If I can catch
That slippery fellow.

There he goes now
Across the floor.
Hey! Look at that noun
Against the wall.

I grind that verb
Beneath my heel.
And with my pen
I quickly kill that
Ugly dangling participle.

Eraser and pen
Does them in.
A few more words
And I'll be done.
No more rules
And grammar is gone.

From Voyages of the Vicky Mary.

Even people with poor English skills have stories to tell. Damn the rules full speed ahead!

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[WritingIsMyReligion]

1. ...

:applause:

:rofl::rofl:

[JitterbugPerfume]

2. it is from Voyages of The Vicky Mary

which is incidentally a wonderful book written by oneighty (with proper usage and punctuation, I might add)

[Lars39]

3. Yes, indeedy!

I know my life would be poorer without your stories, oneighty. :loveya:

[oneighty]

4. Thank you Lars39

I have a long love story 'KAZUKO' (True of course) in the new site by Joeybee. thenecessarylanguage.com

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[Lars39]

5. I've got errands to run, but I'll bookmark it to read in a bit.

:hi:

[JitterbugPerfume]

6. but where oh! where

Are the grammar Nazi types to whom this poem is dedicated?

[miss_american_pie]

7. And I have to do this

The Grammar Lesson


A noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.
An adjective is what describes the noun.
In "The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz"

of and with are prepositions. The's
an article, a can's a noun,
a noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.

A can can roll - or not. What isn't was
or might be, might meaning not yet known.
"Our can of beets is filled with purple fuzz"

is present tense. While words like our and us
are pronouns - i.e. it is moldy, they are icky brown.
A noun's a thing; a verb's the thing it does.

Is is a helping verb. It helps because
filled isn't a full verb. Can's what our owns
in "Our can of beets is filled with purple fuzz."

See? There's almost nothing to it. Just
memorize these rules...or write them down!
A noun's a thing, a verb's the thing it does.
The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz.

Steve Kowit


:hide:

[oneighty]

8. Instructive. Thank you miss_american_pie.

And I do need help.

While reading I kept thinking of Tim Robbin's "Can-o-beans".

Is thinking a verb?

Hahahaha

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[miss_american_pie]

10. I'm sorry

I really didn't mean to be snarky.

[oneighty]

12. Snarky?

You are not snarky at all.

Laughing and having a little fun is good miss_american_pie.

Now if I said "Bye bye Miss American Pie" that would be snarky. It would also be plagiarism.

But it would not be me.

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[miss_american_pie]

13. ...

:rofl:

[JitterbugPerfume]

9. cool poem

:yourock:

[Minnesota Libra]

11. ABSOLUTELY wonderful poem - maybe we should......

.....periodically post this just to give the grammer police something to flame and complain about. :applause: :rofl:

[oneighty]

15. I writ these words of wit

about twenty-seven years ago. I was some drunk at the time sitting in a pool hall on Route Seventeen South north of Charleston S.C. The poem was very much longer then-alas it was destroyed in a fire.

An English teacher saw that poem and asked if she could use it in her class. So my wit was not a total lose.

It is all in fun.

Fear of ridicule will not hold me back. Hahahahaha

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[Minnesota Libra]

23. Well, then post it periodically just to remind everyone........

......it's the content that truly counts. :toast:

[Oeditpus Rex]

14. BraVO!

As a high-ranking officer in the Language Gestapo, I consider this a brilliant and apt screed.

Sometimes the rules need to be broken. Language is also an art, y'know, and art must have freedom.

:applause:

[miss_american_pie]

16. Et tu?

You're not going to start quoting ee cummings on us now, are you? ;)

[Oeditpus Rex]

20. Nah

Nor k.d. lang.

[oneighty]

18. Thank you oh great King

I wrote a critique of 'Oedipus' for my daughter in college. We got an A+. Hahahaha

Edit for stupid remark

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[Oeditpus Rex]

21. I'm connected to Oedipus only in the expurgated version

The one where he loves his mother like a mother.

[oneighty]

22. Of course.

In fairness it is a sad sort of story.

It reads almost like a Greek tragedy without the horse.

Or an 'Ode to A Grecian Urn'.

I went to Greece a couple of times. Only place in the world I ever got robbed.

Check your PM.

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[Saboburns]

17. Hey

Shouldn't the last line read: "Damn the rules (comma) full speed ahead."??

JK

[oneighty]

19. Be damned if I know

If I did I would be on the grammar police side talking about writing instead of doing it.

Being an ex-sailor I was going to say "damn the torpedoes" but I was uncertain of the, spelling.

180 (I got that name in the Navy by the way) Why? Because I was contrary.

180