Brian Allgar: What’s In A Name?
“It’s easier”, said Hamlet glumly,
“To tell a hawk from a handsaw
Than it is to tell a Cholmondeley
From a wretched Featherstonehaugh.”
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Heather Dubrow: Progressive Urology
(Sign on urologist’s door)
Back then when I was only three
I used to say, "I gotta pee."
Ten years older( and much more polite?)
"Go to the bathroom" did seem right.
Technical language was my next fate,
So in adulthood I progressed to "urinate."
Yet more words to choose from? – now I don't care.
But the act can get trickier – this poem won't go there.
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Steven Kent: Regrets
In youth I loved Hugh Mannity,
Though love soon seemed a childish trope.
Now he can't measure up to me,
So I'm alone. Signed, Miss Ann Thrope.
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Jerome Betts: Thoughts On A Display Of Detergent
Use less was, in bold, the direction
On the packets, at which I rejoiced
As it furnished a fleeting reflection
On consonants, voiceless or voiced.
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Tom Schmidt: Ode to Tomb, Bomb, and Comb
If we read in some tome that Tom’s come to his tomb,
Doesn’t logic compel us to trade bomb for “boom”?
While we’re whining, if Jack plumbed a pie for a plum
With aplomb, should we say it was doom or just dumb?
Can I climb, in my clime, till my limbs are in limbo?
Is there jam on the jamb, am I or my iambs akimbo?
Further, comb rhymes with dome, not with some or with come,
As in “some overcome dome comb-overs”; in sum,
I am number than numb at the number of reasons
To denounce English nouns for linguistic malfeasance.
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John S. Eustis: This Is Just Wrong
Wrong is a verb, a noun, or an adjective.
If I wrong you, it would be wrong
To cause such a wrong. Wrong!
It can be an exclamation too.
So many uses for the same word,
None of them wrong, or all of them.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
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L. A. Mereoie: Getting The Bird
He had crowed his new gun would turn clays
Into geese, as it were, plucked and cooked,
So he groused when he missed, like most days,
And had to admit he’d been rooked.
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Max Gutmann: Cuspidor! O Cuspidor!
(Joyce felt that the most euphonious word
in the English language was cuspidor.
– R. Hendrickson British Literary Anecdotes)
Cuspidor! O Cuspidor!
Euphoniousest word!
Most beautiful in the language! (or
at least the best I've heard.)
I love your string of plosives with
those vow-els interstitial.
They make a damp appliance seem
a grand bullfight official.
Though some do not appreciate
your beauty, they're just sissies!
(I used you twice in Dubliners
and twelve times in Ulysses!)
Cuspidor! O Cuspidor!
Euphoniousest word!
Most beautiful in the language (or
at least the best I've heard.)
