Why I'm Here

«…and that’s why I’m here. Merry Christmas to you all. And I’ll see you next
year. Hey now, I’m better than I thought I was.»
«You sure are, Lenora, that was great.»
«Very proper English, is it? If that’s the proper spelling, why is it so easy?»
«Here, Lenora, try this. I then gave her a copy of the original standard
English version of the poem.»
«Uh, uh, what’s that?»
«'Twas.'»
«What's that mean?»
«It means, 'it was.' Go ahead, Lenora, I’ll help you if you have any trouble.»
«'T- 'Twas the- the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a
crea-crea-' How come I’m gettin' so mixed up?»
«Well, it’s a little different than the one you first read. That should be
'creature'»
«Oh, I see. '…creature was st-stirring, not even a mouse…'»
«Lenora's problem with the regular version of the poem was that she could not
cope with the unfamiliar grammar. The translated version used standard English
spellings, so it was apparent that sound spelling correspondences were not
entirely the problem.»
«'The moon on the… on the roof… the… from… falling snow… gave the…
gave the… land of… really thing to. objects below…»
«Good.»
«I'm glad that’s over.»
«This unplanned experiment was duplicated with other inner city children and
always with positive results. It’s suggested that…»