Pearls, we are told, are the oyster’s response to an irritant. I’m not sure that the rhyme above is a pearl, but I can confirm that it was my response to an irritant: the cover of The Good Daughter by popular crime writer Karin Slaughter, which was in full view on the coffee table for a couple of weeks and annoyed me subliminally every time I saw it.
The designer has put the author and title in matching fonts, all caps, and big enough that the longer words span the width available.
That’s all right but they don’t line up!
And if we mentally delete the first letter of the author’s name to make it line up, they don’t rhyme!
Hence my exasperated doggerel. I shared it on social media and some of my friends were amused enough to want to take it further, which led to this:
I offered a draft.
You prefer me to draught?
I will if I must,
but it may come to naught.
It’s a matter of thought
and I may well get caught –
My brain is but dust,
blown away in the dr___t
I will leave it at that, except to express my admiration for anyone who succeeds in learning English as a second language.