Timothy Short The English teacher’s not impressed, His class have barely scraped the test, Simply a piece on abbreviation And then a little on conjugation It wasn't too hard, or so he thought, But all his efforts have come to nought. He shakes his head in consternation, Praveena and her punctuation, ‘And what is this?’ his eyes espy, ‘Oh give me strength, it makes me cry, Apostrophes on every s, On screwed up paper, what a mess! That wretched boy from down the lane His spelling now looks just the same As when he came two years ago, It really is a rotten show.' Why can't his students be like him, Timothy Short, or sometimes Tim, Loving all grammar and taking dictation Studying hard, and with no deviation, Knowing his adverbs, knowing his nouns, Learning their roots from their spelling and sounds. A childhood full of continuous reading, His presents all books he was urgently needing, The love that he felt for every new word, His ambition to teach now really absurd. With children today and texting so rife The misspelling of words is now part of his life, But can language exist without any vowels? You still need to know your bowls from your bowels, 'Now that would be really of interest to see But I wonder,' thinks Tim,' if they'll still need me?' Back to village