Category Archives: the English language

HUMAN PERSONS

HUMAN PERSONS

English is a weird language

With lots of dips and curves…

Was it the Pope who said this phrase

Or one of his translators?

We would say “human beings”,

Their personhood is assumed…

Despite pet owner objections

No other species we include!.

A bone to pick about English–

Do you notice all the cliches…

Too many aren’t taught the basics,

And  richness slips away!

I dispise proselytizers

Who will not good English learn…

Missing meanings in the Bible

Because of how phrases turn.

I guess the uneducated

To the poorly educated go…

That’s why I.S.I.S. gains footholds

In most places that they show.

A Muslim of my acquaintance,

Doesn’t know of the literary device…

Or how the Bible says what it says

‘Though he’s memorized it “twice.”

Trying as a friend to explain this,

To him…he only argues…

If he really knew what he memorized

He’d open his eyes to Good News!

Congrats to the Pope for trying

At the U.N., English to speak…

He proves the adage of Matthew five-five,

The earth is for the teachable meek!

–Jonathan Caswell