A woman I once worked with Was ordinarily quite intelligent But when it came to pronunciation She could become belligerent. Her way was the right way And she brooked no question. Braving her ire, I decided there Was one I had to mention.
She said the word comf-tubble And I said that was incorrect. She got so very irate with me That I feared for my own neck. She called it socially acceptable, Her ghastly mispronunciation. I said it was a sign of the times The slippery ***** of our nation. If people were to go on and cease An honored way of speaking Then, we are all of us adrift In a doomed skiff that is leaking.
She said some more to me But I quit paying much attention. There were too many “I means” And “you knows” to mention. There were ‘haftas’ and ‘ominas’ And the sad utterance, ‘wannabees”. This poor soul would not pass The first hour of a spelling bee. I wondered if this poor soul Had seen on a computer screen. The words just as she was saying On some website she had seen?
I accept that nobody in the USA Or even in Merry Old Blighty Says words like Wednesday Comfortable or February rightly. It’s like there is an international Formal and binding declaration That nobody need say these words Correctly in English speaking nations. We can lapse into hickbonics, We jess *** tah stumble along And say set instead of sit, and Others we so often say wrong.
We kin say double pneumonia And quay’s eye and nukeyoulurr, Irregardless and even *** cans, And nobuddy questions wut fur. We c’n say thangs like reel utter, SimmYooLurr, BennaFishErAiry. Innerest, furrmillyurr, Mason Airy, Flustration and shudder LieBerry. But as sure as there is air to breathe And that every day will follow night Most people pronouncing words A certain way doesn’t make it right.