Defending Twitter (and Rhymed Haikus)

A Simple Solution
 
I have free advice
for those who don’t like Twitter:
give it a wide berth!

Stay away therefrom,
and give it just as much time
as you think it’s worth!

You’ll feel no loss, I
assure you, and its users
will notice no dearth:

everyone wins.
We have more important things
to address on Earth.*

* see a discussion at Catallaxy Files wherein, inter alia, I submitted these verses:

Limit characters

to one hundred and forty,

and yet still inform


effectively? Yes,

and it can be done using

some poetic norm.

A poster—Oh come on—has said 
that Twitter is better not read;
   thus critics have gibed
   at words circumscribed,

preferring the prolix instead.

The haiku’s a verse,
 
of seventeen syllables,

meaningful, but terse.

(The original

form had to contain a word

which is seasonal;

but the modern kind

can be very expressive

without that, I find.)

UPDATE I:  a recapitulation:

Twitter:  “seven score
characters should suffice for
pithy points, no more”.

UPDATE II (11 August):  an encapsulation:

The critics’ complaint?
brevity’s unfair constraint,
and what Twitter aint.

On Anti-Pedantry

The Toolbox
 
Whether cutting jew’ls,
wood, rugs or verse, good workers
must know all their tools’

customs; tongues have rules
too—which will guide the learnèd
as they order fools.*


A Test
 
If you have a mind
you can prove anti-pedants’
inconsistency

for I have designed
a quick test: misspell their names
deliberately

and you will soon find
some laws are good. Try spelling
“Stephen” with a v;†

he won’t be so kind,
I warrant, to those who would feel
that convention-free.

*  Douglas Bader: “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”
†  these verses (in slightly different form) were originally posted as a comment, at Catallaxy Files, on a rant by Stephen Fry against grammatical pedantry.

UPDATE:  I added what is now the last verse.

UPDATE II:  I added this:

A Message

I, for one, delight
in seeing our wonderful
language used quite well;

yet we may enjoy
the ‘cool web’ of English and,
at the same time, tell

this Stephen Fry cove,
“Precision does have a place.
You can go to hell.”