Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey

when will it ever end?

Mark Liberman over at Language Log has observed a couple of latecomer pieces in The Guardian about the whole jumbled letter flapdoodle.

I know that it's churlish and pedantic to complain about an inadequately-researched joke, and in this case the truth would have made the joke harder to frame. Still, I feel that Johnson should have gotten his facts in order, especially because he complains about the decline in educational standards. His complaints are ironic, and thus ambiguous, but are irony and ambiguity an excuse for ignorance?

For some reason, I am reminded of the concert pianist in Heinrich Böll's deligthfully hilarious novel, Gruppenbild mit Dame, who is forced to play "Lili Marleen" over and over again.