Helen Cooper
11-30-2007, 11:19 PM
Many years ago when I was young
English was an old familiar tongue,
Words were used alike in speech and prose,
Our quotes began, "He said" and not, "He goes".
When speaking, words came in a steady flow,
No frequent interjections of "you know",
Like was an adjective, a noun, a verb
But wasn't used as every other word.
"Blue-collars" used to be the only folk
Whose unrefined language was a joke,
But now it seems to college one must go
To speak a language most of us don't know,
We often hear an athlete on T.V.
Who has mastered this new lingo to a "T",
So be careful when you use "like" or "he goes",
Don't intersperse your comments with "you know",
For making frequent errors such as these
Is changing English to "Americanese".
English was an old familiar tongue,
Words were used alike in speech and prose,
Our quotes began, "He said" and not, "He goes".
When speaking, words came in a steady flow,
No frequent interjections of "you know",
Like was an adjective, a noun, a verb
But wasn't used as every other word.
"Blue-collars" used to be the only folk
Whose unrefined language was a joke,
But now it seems to college one must go
To speak a language most of us don't know,
We often hear an athlete on T.V.
Who has mastered this new lingo to a "T",
So be careful when you use "like" or "he goes",
Don't intersperse your comments with "you know",
For making frequent errors such as these
Is changing English to "Americanese".