Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Inspired Language

 


The muse of literacy is not amused.

She is in fact beyond the state of bemused

quite beside herself in the face of the

unaware unwillingness of those who

embark upon that most common of shared

human expressions to exert themselves

not fastidiously, but deliberately and

with all due courtesy to language, use

the words meant to convey their thoughts

and use them accurately, inclusive of the

specific order of the alphabet that identifies

those words, for the elegance of language

and communication demands no less.

I know all this and so would you if you

but heeded her rules through the simple

expedient of respect and admiration for

all that language allows. That which has

the effect of demeaning language in turn

identifies the abuser as one unworthy of

the gift of communication. A visual blight

and an assault on one's sensibilities when

a blissfully unaware mangler of prose

poses as one whose opinions are fraught

with meaning and substance, all flown off

in an embarrassment of sad association.

 

 

1 comment:

Pieface said...

Coincidence?
Yesterday I decided to re-read a novel by an acclaimed writer, a historical novel whose content was of personal interest to me. I got no further that the first several pages when it struck me how much in need this tome was back then of a strong editor. Perhaps famous authors are thought to write pure gold and no one should question their prose even when it tends to the superfluous verbose. Today I just happened to come across a poem I had written five years ago, perfectly expressing my irritation with the sloppiness of so much that people write...