The annoying people who
To my consternation
Have corrected me
I’d never know
There’s a hard “G”
In Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Or that the first name of the most famous Waugh
(Neither Auberon nor Alec, I mean)
Starts, unexpectedly,
With a long “E”
Or that the “L”
In Ralph Vaughan Williams
Is silent; or that
Bishop Berkeley, the philosopher
Is pronounced like the Muppet: you know—
Big Bird’s dog.
These are the things
You can’t get
Just from reading
Unless, that is,
You know
The pronunciation code.
Each time
It happened
That someone corrected me
I found it unforgivable
I still haven’t forgiven it, in fact.
I do not do so now.
But they saved me from
Having to be corrected again
By others on these same points
So they ensured,
In their generosity,
That there are fewer people in the world who
I will never be able to forgive
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