by Reed Venrick

 

Before the growing, growling crowd

In Paris, the rabble rouser stood 

 

On a tree stump and faced them:

“Let’s storm the building

 

Of this ‘Academie Francaise’

Established when Louis XIII

 

Back when he was the royal king!

Because look what the esteemed

 

Academy allows in our language!

Just look at one of our most 

 

Common verbs “parler” to illustrate,

Je parle/ tu parles/ Il/elle/on parle/

 

Nous parlons/vous parlez/ils, elles parlent.

Do you see and hear the wrong

 

Done here? See how not only

The first three conjugated

 

Tenses are strangely spoken

And pronounced the same, but 

 

Then the third person plural, “parlent”

Is not properly pronounced

 

So that the two-syllable word

“Parlent” is spoken exactly

 

The same as the three

Previously conjugated tenses

 

Of “je parle, tu parles, il parles.”

This is ridiculous! Soooo

 

Illogical! Do we really need

Rosseau or Voltaire to ask:

 

How can a body of rational

Academics, pretending to be

 

Guardians of our beautiful

Language, consent to this

 

Incomplete way of speaking French!

I say we storm this academy

 

Just as they did last summer

At the Bastille! I say we enter

 

This building, we go into those

Stuffy offices, we demand they

 

Change the pronunciation, no

Matter what lame excuse they 

 

Give, for no longer will we say “parl”

When we should say “parlent,”

 

Pronouncing both its two syllables.

“Oui,” we will change our language

 

Learning our revolution, if need be

So that in the future, language

 

Learners will finally speak what

Rational speakers see on the page:

 

“S’il vous plait, parlent,

“Par-lent! Par-lent, Par-lent!