Simon Cowell and Pot Noodles

Like any apprentice old git, BT regularly sounds off about use and abuse of language. I know language evolves and all that guff but I think, like the pool of human knowledge in a post-apocalyptic society, the vocabulary of individuals may be shrinking.

There are lots of reasons why it might; narrowing educational syllabi, syllabuses or syllabus; fewer people reading; TV; pot noodles; Simon Cowell; text-spell; rap; or the inability to walk through a shopping mall without a mobile in one hand and a bottle of branded water in the other. I wonder if this first generation of bloggers may turn out to be a golden one, blogging Blogging's swan song.

I know few things are more irritating and arrogant than whingeing about people's use of english. Just because I prefer ruh-search to reeee-search, forr'ed to four-head, doesn't mean I'm right (although; There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her four-head. And when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was whore-head).

But I can't help minding. It's my beautiful language too, and they're using it like an ashtray.

Anyway, this piece of BT doggerel is for riders who are not readers. I'm sure they'll thank me for it:

How to Tell a Ménage from a Manège

In the days of the Raj
Gents knew a ménage
Was the way the French spoke
Of a bird and a bloke.

In that fastidious age
They knew a manège
As a general rule
Meant a riding school.

So a 'ménage a trois'
Was three people cuddling
Not three schooling rings
(It's all a bit muddling)

The problem, of course is
We'll be inviting troubles
If we keep schooling horses
On French married couples.