The Anglish Moot
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Rikecraft and the English Tung

1946

Un-Anglish draft at [1]

Most folk who bother with the bylore at all would yaysay that the English tung is in a bad way, but it is thought overall that we cannot by willful deed do anything about it. Our folkset is rotten and our tung — so the clearmaking runs — must share in the overall downfall. It follows that any struggle against the mishandling of speech is soppy yoretrothenness, like bywanting candles over wirelight or horsewains over windwains. Underneath this lies the half-aware belief that speech is a wild growth and not a tool which we shape for our own ends.

Now, it is clear that the downslide of a tung must sooner or later have yokely and geldly howfores: it is not owing only to the input of this or that lone writer. But a therefore can become a howfore, strengthening again the first howfore and bringing forth the same therefore in a stronger shape, and so on unendingly. A man may take to drink for that he feels himself to be an underwinner, and then underwin all the more wholly 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 easier for us to have unwise thoughts. The clearmakingend is that the throughwork is unstoppable. Nowa 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 yokely 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.

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