Colloquial Language: It is How We Talk!

If the goal is to be understood,
Say what you have to say
In an understandable way;
The only thing peculiar
About the vernacular
Is the reluctance of those
Who believe that formal language
Is a precious and righteous Excalibur
To accept, embrace and use it.

Colloquial exchange
Is well within the range
Of people from all social strata.
When the object is to be understood
It doesn’t do much good
To allow correct usage and structure
To become the only things that matter.

The Oxford English Dictionary
Expands each and every year
As new words are added to it,
Acknowledging and codifying
The everyday language
That we hear.
Language is an organic thing
Kept alive by the way
That people use it;
It is more likely that our own
Will evolve rather than die
Unless the linguistic elitists
Choose to insist that everything
Be formally spoken and correctly writ.
I suspect that even
A self-declared champion of formal usage and syntax
Would understand it when I say
“Oh, shit!”


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