Knocking Slang
(Collier’s Weekly and the New York Tribune have started a crusade against slang once more, and especially the brand used in detailing ball games.)
Nix on the slang; chop out the stuff;
That ain’t no way to pass the dope out.
Crawl easy on this line of guff
And push it for a gentle slope out;
Don’t make the English spiel a joke
By crabbing up the conversation;
Give it a chance correctly spoke
Without some wise mutt’s explanation.
If there is one thing puts the punk
Kibosh upon me, it’s the geezer
Who’s always spieling out some junk
And running in some funny wheezer;
Who jams in with a bunch of talk
That listens like it had a cancer,
Until somebody calls a balk
And grabs a chart to pick the answer.
Why ain’t the old spiel good enough
That’s lined out in the dictionary,
That we must draw this cross-fire guff
To which no sane gazabe is jerry?
I’ll take mine in the simple buzz
When Noah Webster led the batting.
He had these slangsters on the buzz
When it came down to big league chatting.
Nix on this slang; it’s on the blink,
And my remarks are here emphatic.
The geek who slings it through the ink
Has beetles in his bush league attic.
Let’s slip in on the Big Revive
For scholarly and classic diction.
Come on, you mutts now, with the dive
And do a Brodie at this fiction.