Rikecraft and the English Tung

Yokecraft and the english tung.

1946

Most folk who bother with the lore at all would give that the english tung is in a bad way, but it is mostly thought that we cannot by thoughtful work do anything about it. Our tamefolkhood is downfalling and our tung -- so the clearmaking runs -- must share in the overall downfall. It follows that any struggle against the mishandling of speech is yesterlustful, like wanting candles over wirelight or horsewains over windwains. Underneath this lies the half-thoughtful belief that speech is an inborn growth and not a tool which we shape for our own ends.

Now, it is clear that the infall of a tung must lastly have yokecraftish and geldish makings: it is not owing only to the inflow of this or that lone writer. But a happening can become a making, strengthening again the first making and making the same happening in a stronger kind, and so on unendingly. A man may take to drink for that he feels himself to be an unworking, and then unwork all the more fully because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the english tung. It becomes ugly and unaright for that our thoughts are unwise, but the slovenliness of our tung makes it softer for us to have unwise thoughts. The clearmakingend is that the throughwork is unstoppable. New English, namely written English, is full of bad wonts which spread by likedoing and which can be forgone if one is willing to take the needed worry. If one gets rid of these wonts one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a needed first step toward yokecraftish regrowth: so that the fight against bad English is not folly and is not only the worry of underling writers. I will come back to this nowishly, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the english tung as it is now wontfully written.