Dear Mr. Whippy
\nVCS<\/p>\n
Mr. Whippy is ganging up on me
\nWith his gang of thugs
\nAnd his alphabets
\nHe hems and hrumphs and I know
\nHe knows how to rap knuckles
\nWith that stick
\nHe keeps telling me
\nThat Diacritacal marks come later
\nFirst learn to make the lines
\n‘But,’ I protest, ‘I fear that
\nMy pronunciation is quite off.’
\nHe sucks in his mustache and his lips disappear
\nUnderneath his disapproving
\nBut very discerning over-lip hair
\nAnd when John Dee
\nMakes his foot notes
\nIn another tongue
\nI know that Mr. Whippy will translate for me
\nBut with many a disapproving air
\nAt kids these days
\nWho aren’t taught ancient Greek
\nAnd barely read Latin at all
\nHow remiss my classical education
\nHe will groan between making marks in shorthand
\n(Another dying art! Ah, why don’t they teach
\nthe children shorthand?)
\nDear Mr. Whippy, I fear of opening
\nThe door of every room of learning
\nMy brain is only so big
\nAnd I haven’t read all the classics
\nMy education is appalling
\nWhy bother to read them at all
\nIf not in their native tongues?
\nIt’s with dragging feet that I carry my notebooks
\nAnd my tomes
\nTo Mr. Whippy’s door
\nAnd hope he won’t berate me
\nI fear my head will explode
\nIf I try to learn any more! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Mr. Whippy VCS Mr. Whippy is ganging up on me With his gang of thugs And his alphabets He hems and hrumphs and I know He knows how to rap knuckles With that stick He keeps telling me That Diacritacal marks come later First…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39421,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39350\/revisions\/39421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}