Midweek Review
Battle of the ‘Englishes’
By Lynn Ockersz
Thanks for your thoughts,
Our good, dedicated Dons,
From yon Groves of Academe,
On the torments of teaching,
Standard and ‘Sri Lankan English’,
But since ‘good’ Spoken English,
Nowhere could be found,
Not even in ‘Old Blighty’,
Don’t pursue that dream,
In local lecture halls,
But inflexible standards,
Continue to reign supreme,
In the field of Written English,
And no one hoping to be counted,
Among the small ‘educated elite’,
Not even you, our Good Sires,
Would dare violate its grammar,
Lest you be derided and trashed,
As a practitioner of ‘Broken English’,
So, you have no choice, I’m afraid,
But to uphold ‘Grammatical English’.