Superiority of Saxon English

©  Copyright 2001  Richard Brodie


I found the following untitled sonnet, attributed to a Dr. J. Addison Alexander, in a book entitled "Development of English Literature and Language", by Alfred H. Welsh, published in 1888. It was in a section entitled "Superiority of Saxon English".

In addition to containing exactly 140 one-syllable words, it has the unusual rhyme pattern: ababcbc, repeated twice. By contrast, my anagram seeks to employ as many "big, round words" and "sleek, fat phrases" as possible. My lines tend to contain fewer letters, since there are naturally more open syllables in polysyllabic words than there are in a collection of monosyllabic ones. The result is that the anagram consists of two additional lines, with the pattern augmented to: ababcbcb.

In form, this is an anti-gram. But in substance it is what I call a contragram, i.e. one which turns an original's "A is good" into "Non-A is bad". In this case, the titles are anagrammed separately

 

  Superiority of Saxon English

  Think not that strength lies in the big, round word,
  Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak.
  To whom can this be true who once has heard
  The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak,
  When want, or fear, or woe, is in the throat,
  So that each word gasped out is like a shriek
  Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange, wild note,
  Sung by some fay or fiend? There is a strength,
  Which dies if stretched to far, or spun too fine,
  Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length.
  Let but this force of thought and speech be mine,
  And he that will, make take the sleek, fat phrase
  Which glows, but burns not, though it beam and shine,
  Light, but no heat - a flash, but not a blaze.
 


  Oh! Singularity of Expression

  With elocution snobbish, puissance
  Peacockish and effete methinks be found;
  The kind that's heard with fawning sycophants:
  That oral intercourse that doth resound
  With elegant aristocratic phrase.
  To orators disdainful doth redound
  Much adulation, hear their mawkish praise.
  The babble and the weighty words astound!
  To brag with knowledge esoteric hath
  The pedant, to amaze, himself bethought.
  Thee, simple speaker, get to feel the wrath
  When meaning from that breathy fluff be sought.
  The error be to think that when he gabs
  He's rather helpful. Oh that's wrong! He's not.
  Another error: thinking, when he blabs,
  Men fete the rants. Mere gall! he's not so hot.