Sesquipedalian

I learnt a new word today

Don't know when I'll use it

Normally I have little to say

Not much chance I'll abuse it.

It seems there are some people

Who use words long and fancy

Sitting high up in their steeples

For me it'd be too chancy.

What I want to know is

Who needs such arduous words?

Well, maybe the folks in showbiz

They don't do things by thirds.

And maybe the legal eagles

With their tortured, twisted tongues

And the investigative beagles

Chasing fugitives on the run.

And I suppose our politicians

Need a large vocabulary

And of course magicians

Like to take you up a tributary

And doctors write prescriptions

In their homologated text

For therapeutic medications

To keep their patients so perplexed.

And writers, authors and poets

Love the polysyllabic

Journalists and other all-know-its

Love the detail and the graphic

Even cowboys must'ring cattle

Issuing orders with invective

Want to show their mettle

Though simple words are as effective.

So I suppose there is a place

Other than a diphthong

For words in lowercase

That seem really, really long.

MDC 4/5/2005