THE great American humorist Ogden Nash broods about language in this engaging sample from The Old Dog Barks Backwards, a posthumous collection of 77 of his verses, not previously published in book form (Andre Deutsch, 1973).
WHAT DO YOU WANT,
A MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE,
OR A SATISFACTORY TALK?
Bad money drives out good.
That's Gresham's Law which I have not until recently
understood.
No economist I, to economics I have an incurable
allergy,
But now I understand Gresham's Law through obvious
analogy.
Just as bad money drives the good beyond our reach,
So has the jargon of the hippie, the huckster and the
bureaucrat debased the sterling of our once lucid
speech.
What's worse, it has induced the amnesia by which
I am faced;
I can't recall the original phraseology which the
jargon has replaced.
Would that I had the memory of a computer or an
elephant!
What used I to say instead of uptight, clout and
thrust and relevant?
Linguistics becomes an even eerier area, like I feel
like I'm in Oz,
Just trying to tell it like it was.
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