TO PROFESSOR LOUNSBURY.

TO PROFESSOR LOUNSBURY.
356.2

The following amusing verse is ad- dressed to Professor
Lounsbury, the arch- champion of popular usage in speech, by
“Grammaticus” in the current Harper’s weekly:
“My dear Professor, though it wrackb my ear
Those raucous split infinitives to hear:
Though it doth sorely tax my troubled brain
An object with a passive to explain
Though how things are that only are to be
Nonpluses, puzzles, plagues and pesters me.
I’ll hold my nose and swallow all the kit,
Infinitives to spindling splinters split,
My is to be’s to is’s straightway alter
And bind my objects with halter-
In short, unloose my tongue from Gram- mar’s bit
And curse all rules grammarians ever writ,
If only, only, you will just agree
To stop accusing me of pedantry.”