Re: Englishmen and cliche'

["Schrade, Scott" <sschrade@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The bottom line is still that he, Rog, took poetic liberty to use the 
> cliche cause it fit nicely and had a good ring to it.


But that's not really what poetic *license* means.  Poetic license is
when someone departs from *grammatical* rules (proper sentence structure,
noun/verb order, etc.) in order to complete a rhyme or keep a certain
pattern or flow.

Poetic license doesn't mean you can incorrectly use a phrase or cliche'
just because you want to *use* that particular phrase or cliche'.  That's
not poetic license.  That's a mistake.

And Daltrey's lyrics aren't exactly what I would call complex.  All he
had to do was spot his error & make an easy change.

For example:  Instead of saying "What a sight for sore eyes I must've 
been," he could've easily changed it to "What a terrible sight I must've
been" & not lost any meter or syllables in the process.  There's an
infinite number of ways he could've corrected it.

We'll grant him poetic license, however, in the line "Then I hit 21 -
a new chapter begun" which should read "Then I hit 21 - a new chapter
*had* begun."  We'll let that one go.  The other one, I'm afraid, is just
plain wrong for his intended meaning.


- SCHRADE in Akron