Wallace Stevens

Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility.

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Judgement Of A Word

Global internet on line
American spelling machine?
When searching online

will flag British judgement
as spelling incorrect
will insist on US judgment

yet is this judgement correct?
Both judgment and judgement
occur with equal frequency set?

One spelling English one American
what a bother when both are correct?
Will you your online dictionary update?

Your own personal ‘judgment call' abridgment?
This choice spelling inconsistencies will assist?
Still wondering why the two spellings resist?

To this question trade English American
politics dark flavours a colonial twist?
War of 1812 sabres parent British patron.

Oxford English Dictionary preferred
judgement a war of words is absurd.
1812 fosters nationalism independent.

Judgement remained form sanctioned
in the Bible in new Revised Version.
Older English spelling recommended.

Shakespeare plays judgment US spelt.
Judgement rules British English text.
Rule is spell consistently either is best.


poem by Terence George CraddockReport problemRelated quotes
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Gertrude Stein is interviewed on American poetry

and there was the knocking on the door
that we were expecting
and it was the man
that we were expecting
with the questions we were expecting
to which answers were expected
by those who expect answers
as if life were like that
which for writers it is not

yes, tea was drunk
and after tea the tape recorder set up
so that what I said
I would continue to say
somewhere else
even when I changed my mind
here and nowhere else

and he said Ms Stein
what do you think of American poetry
and we said well it's American
and it's poetry
that's as it should be
and really that's all there is to say
and the man looked disappointed
so we asked him did he read poetry
and he said poetry no I dont read poetry
but my editor does
so I said it's really about Americans
living their lives
that's what American poetry is really about
because Americans move around
and so their words move around and
words in English have lost their intensity
but American words are always on the move
and they are more intense
yes, Americans living among Americans
and talking to their neighbours
if it's not about that
it's not really American poetry at all is it
if it's not about that
then why bother writing poetry

and the man was asking about a rose
being a rose being a rose and we said
for a hundred years the rose
has not been red in poetry
but now for the first time in a hundred years
the rose is red again

and the man looked at his watch
and said thank you Ms Stein
and was switching off his tape recorder

and a month later that
was what we said
in a magazine much read
by Americans who mostly
are not poets no very few but we said it
we know that this is so
because we read it there
and we think that really
that was all there was to say
because that was all we think
is really important
about American Poetry
that the words move like Americans move
and that is exciting for a writer
and that is the important thing about
American Poetry

poem by Michael ShepherdReport problemRelated quotes
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To become an American citizen, we require people to read, write and speak in English. That is to help them to assimilate in our melting pot, truly to become Americans. We mock that when the cherished right to vote does not involve English any more.

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It seems that American patriotism measures itself against an outcast group. The right Americans are the right Americans because they're not like the wrong Americans, who are not really Americans.

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Who Wonders About Spellings?

who wonders about spellings?
judgement made and judgment passed
a word application flags judgement

as an incorrect spelling
but a rolling stone gathers no moss
search the word online

a kiwi familiar with both
British and American spellings
instantly searches in mind

both judgement and judgment
occur with seemingly equal frequency
one English the other American?

Dictionary English
Dictionary American
Program setting in computer?

What a bother!
If both are OK
on differing sides of pond?

Yes Yes you guess
you could...
updat your dictionary?

by adding
the 'judgement'
spelling

but doing
so might
lend

it will it will
assistance...
to spelling

inconsistencies
a certain probability
yes yes a 'judgment call'

your wondering
why the two spellings?
now your saying

you would have to say
British spelling is judgement
American spelling is judgment

now your quoting
early twentieth century?
when H. W. Fowler

was writing
his influential
book on usage

a personal opinion
the spelling judgment
was research evidently

being used
by a lot
of British writers?

It is the British spelling
it is the British rule
for all British spellings!

All American writers
use American spellings
unless living in Britain?

Canada Australia
New Zealand India
Commonwealth nations?

according to Fowler
'modern usage'
favored judgment?

nevertheless
Fowler and the OED
preferred judgement?

What rot old bean
Henry Watson Fowler
was an English schoolmaster

a lexicographer
and commentator
on the usage

of the English language
notable for both achievements
'A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'
and work on the 'Concise Oxford Dictionary'

described by 'The Times'
as 'a lexicographical genius'
he was English following

English spellings
English rules
pure simple or researched

how bizarre to come so far from
judgement to judgment made
but for a different spin read on in

judgements of a poet fanciful made
when waxing romantic artful
'When Soul Walked Night Visions'

when waxing playful insightful delightful
'A Desire To Know Deep Meanings'
explores shift changes in dictionaries made

or knock upon histories door for origins
'Dr Samuel Johnson's Dictionary Masterpiece'
cross channel 'Webster's American Spellings'

final 'Judgement Of A Word' brings us
full circle global internet on line spellings
to swiftly search out basic online meanings


poem by Terence George CraddockReport problemRelated quotes
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This is America: Better know English

America was once the magnificent place
Where all immigrants wanted to escape
So they illegally come here, as illegal aliens
Hiding in the back of our American vans
Now our schools and jobs require multiple languages
When we’re the Americans, we’re supposed to speak English!
And we do and just because they don’t
Doesn’t mean their language is a demand we should know
Don’t come to America if you don’t know the language
I’m just being realistic, I’m not being racist
Don’t put up store signs if they’re not readable
You’re in America; English is the main language you should know
Then they’re pissed because people won’t help out their business
But their forgetting us Americans don’t speak their language
We don’t go to Mexico demanding English classes
So why should they own the right to demand us Spanish?
I love the language, and everything BUT
THIS IS AMERICA look our history up!
Then tell me if French should be required
Where in the hell in the time line is that desired?
I know this is the land of opportunity, land of the free
But we should be able to communicate as human beings
And if that’s just too hard no one said they had to stay here
They can go back where they came from and speak in harmony there
I’m just a full blood American, as so the rest of my family
And like others, our language should be the first they’re demanding
We're tired of going to our fastfood restaurants to eat
When the orderer of our order can't even speak
And buyers, don't buy our house
If you can't even pronounce our street out
I'm tired of security going through all our private equipment
I'm an American, Bitch, do I look like a terrorist?
Honestly, you can come here if you want to be
Since this is the best place of opportunity
And we don’t care if you speak 20 different languages and love them
But this is AMERICA, ENGLISH better be one of them!

poem by Sugar BearReport problemRelated quotes
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I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction!

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For this reason, to study English literature without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete.

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I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.

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It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race.

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A number of Americans were used, most often unwillingly, by North Korea to arm spies with English-speaking skills so they could target American interests in South Korea and beyond.

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Ethan Hawke

A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. You're always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare.

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Source Of Confort

God is a source of energy
God is a source of light
God is a source of love
God is a source of peace
God is a source of comfort
God is a source of hope
God is a source of freedom
God is a source of praise

poem by Aldo KraasReport problemRelated quotes
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Sick of home

Sometime I get homesick for places I have never been.
I get wanderlust so badly it makes me grind my teeth till they shatter..

During the grave shift, at the shelter,
some nights, will I do nothing but look up bus and (even better) train schedules.

(Everyone knows trains are the only romantic way to travel)

I use maps and red markers to plot escape routes.
I always have a fire escape and enough bills to leave town.

8 hours spent with maps and bus schedules spread out on the floor of a locked office... plotting the great escape.

I have been homesick for Russia: (Thanks to Dostoyevsky and Akhmatovaa)

Henry Miller made me homesick for the Paris of the 40's.

I blame two things on literature:
two fatal cracks and fissures in my personality,
cracks and fissures that often manifest in 'strange' and 'inappropriate' places.

(Watch the news and tell me there is anything that can be called
'inappropriate behavior' these days....)

The two 'feet of clay' I place squarely on literature's doorstep are:

My ability to only feel at home in places where I am not,

and my Heroin addiction.

Cos every good junkie:
Heroin or travel
have their mentors.

poem by Brevet WilsonReport problemRelated quotes
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Indeed, I think most Americans now know that in 1935 when Social Security was created, there were some 42 Americans working for every American collecting retirement benefits.

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American literature has never been content to be just one among the many literatures of the Western World. It has always aspired to be the literature not only of a new continent but of a New World.

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There's so much we can't express in our day-to-day interaction with people because it's considered inappropriate. And acting is all about being inappropriate.

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Battle of the Herrings

A fishing action
North of France
1429 took place
Cause of battle
French vs. English
Anticipation/baited breath
River – flat plain
Set up strategy
Hook/line/sinker
British attacked first
French were slow
English bombarded fish
French did not
want to get
their shoes wet
Were most certain
outflanked by British
French counter attacked
Used Brie instead
of slippery worms
Won the fishing
competition – yelled Viva’
la fishermen French
“What was that”?
asked the English
“What’s the matter
with you cockneys
Hard of Herring? ”

'2008'

poem by Robert SheridanReport problemRelated quotes
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Teeth

English Teeth, English Teeth!
Shining in the sun
A part of British heritage
Aye, each and every one.
English Teeth, Happy Teeth!
Always having fun
Clamping down on bits of fish
And sausages half done.
English Teeth! HEROES' Teeth!
Hear them click! and clack!
Let's sing a song of praise to them -
Three Cheers for the Brown Grey and Black.

poem by Spike MilliganReport problemRelated quotes
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Responsibility Encoded Truth

most hide from the truth
but truth demands responsibility
accuracy empathy sensibility

lost is discernment rare art
logic applied sense sensibility?
No rare is once prized rare art
valued sense and sensibility?

most hide from inconvenient truth
but truth demands responsibility
integrity morality sensibility

poem by Terence George CraddockReport problemRelated quotes
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