After long study of the English tree
I’ve come to insist – for we must agree
that of all the words that bear invention
‘irkful’ right now has strong contention:
after ‘irksome’, there’s a waiting station
yet it’s not so bad as irritation.
I also think (and please listen, jury)
saying ‘double-u’ stirs up my fury.
The worst encumbrance of the highest sort
an empty weighted sound, unsold, unbought.
I think it ought to be pronounced as ‘wu’,
two whole syllables’ loss, for ease of u’s
and their transitions to x y and z.
My next advice might need a double-take:
‘Conspiracist’ does not a racist make,
but one who feeds and clothes himself with lies
who burrows underground and watches skies
for Greys and government planes with strange lights;
who hates his phone and believes in wights.
‘Conspiracy theorist’ – too verbose.
‘Conspirator’ implies one is the ghost,
‘conspiracist’ works for makers of words:
makes them seem guilty for avoiding herds.
I have yet another contentious wish
to aid in excise of pretentious pish –
that several sterling combinations
should cut or otherlose fragmentations
(optionally) andor, inthe, mumdad,
‘’so’n,’* to prevent the canny undergrad
from preparing a sickly word-count gloop:
a bowl of cheap and nasty chicken soup
that’ll have it back in bed when the prof.
cuts the fluff.
*’and so on’
verso folio 