No reason, just rhyme

[bunrab]

So I've survived another year, alive
If not intact. I got a new device.
I read a hundred books and maybe more.
I wrote a song; the bands played on and on.
I gained three pounds. Why should an increase in diameter
Lead me to post in iambic pentameter?

It's probably at least partly due to currently reading John McWhorter's Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation Of Language And Music And Why We Should, Like, Care, in which he decries the decline of oratory and poetry and laments the dumbing down of written American English. A certain amount of whining, and definitely preaching to the choir, since he uses a vocabulary fairly far beyond the average "talking" vocabulary of most Americans.

Happy New Year, y'all!

Comments

[o-jenny.livejournal.com]

Great post. The McWhorter book sounds interesting. Will you post a review when you finish?

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

I don't know that it's worth a review. Although he says a lot of interesting things in there, the book is weak overall. After telling us it's not the fault of our education system, and it's not the fault of this, and that, he finally tells us what he thinks is the cause of the decline of good language. You ready for this? The 1965 Immigration Act. Yeah. Strange. Still, I'd be happy to send it to you if you want; I got it at Half-Price Books, so even though it's a hardcover, I don't mind parting with it.