The American's a hustler, for he says so, <br /> And surely the American must know. <br />He will prove to you with figures why it pays so <br /> Beginning with his boyhood long ago. <br />When the slow-maturing anecdote is ripest, <br /> He'll dictate it like a Board of Trade Report, <br />And because he has no time to call a typist, <br /> He calls her a Stenographer for short. <br /> <br /> <br />He is never known to loiter or malinger, <br /> He rushes, for he knows he has 'a date' ; <br />He is always on the spot and full of ginger, <br /> Which is why he is invariably late. <br />When he guesses that it's getting even later, <br /> His vocabulary's vehement and swift, <br />And he yells for what he calls the Elevator, <br /> A slang abbreviation for a lift. <br /> <br /> <br />Then nothing can be nattier or nicer <br /> For those who like a light and rapid style. <br />Than to trifle with a work of Mr Dreiser <br /> As it comes along in waggons by the mile. <br />He has taught us what a swift selective art meant <br /> By description of his dinners and all that, <br />And his dwelling, which he says is an Apartment, <br /> Because he cannot stop to say a flat. <br /> <br /> <br />We may whisper of his wild precipitation, <br /> That it's speed in rather longer than a span, <br />But there really is a definite occasion <br /> When he does not use the longest word he can. <br />When he substitutes, I freely make admission, <br /> One shorter and much easier to spell ; <br />If you ask him what he thinks of Prohibition, <br /> He may tell you quite succinctly it is Hell.<br /><br />Gilbert Keith Chesterton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-ballad-of-abbreviations/
