A satirical elegy

A Satirical elegy
On the Death of a Late Famous General
by Jonathan Swift

His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age, too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the news-papers we're told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
'Twas time in conscience he should die.
This world he cumber'd long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's sighs, nor orphan's tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he dy'd...

The resistance movement against Webster, Oxford, Longman, MLA and other sentinels of the Standard English Advancement Act, short Sea Act, has finally gained enough momentum to throw off the tyranny of the language czars. For years, the movement, calling itself Sons and Daughters of Liberty, has objected to the Act for a variety of reasons, especially because it violates the right to free expression. The movement has pledged to abstain from abiding by grammar rules, successfully unloaded the English language of burdensome syntax conventions, and finally dumped 342 chests filled with dictionaries and style manuals into Boston Harbor.
Thousands of people watched and attended an ensuing mass meeting during which a resolution was passed based on a similar resolution promulgated already in 1905 in Otto Jesperson’s Growth and Structure of the English Language. Jesperson praised the happy casualness of the English language which is “laid out seemingly without any definite plan, and in which you are allowed to walk everywhere according to your own fancy without having to fear a stern keeper enforcing rigorous regulations.”
No one but a few mossbacks will bemoan the demise of grammar. The rest will heave a sight of relief: no more lost sleep over absurd rules based on Latin, a language deader than dead. Americans have severed their ties to the old world once more, declared their independence and, beginning immediately, will no longer concede the authority of a language legislature which does not represent the majority.



The official announcement is available in a
print and an audio version.The latter might be easier to follow since most citizens already are used to hearing lawmakers' garbled communiqués.