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In a big entry you divided fairly equally between penners and punners, while a few clever dicks chose to ignore the space between ‘pen’ and ‘is’. The winners, printed below, get £25; Frank McDonald’s piscatory paronomastic angle on the new Scots nets the bonus five puns.
Remember when the Scot was dour
And took up arms to have his say
At Flodden and Culloden Moor,
But muscle never won the day.
Old Scotia’s now a fishy plaice
Where salmon and sturgeon think they’re brill;
They carp against the English mace
And nurse ambitions to go sole.
They swallow minnows, saw off jack
And chuckle as they take their charr;
They perch in wait and then attack
Convinced that salmon has no parr.
These finny folk have found a ray
Of sunshine in a witty word;
They’ve thrown their rusty dirks away:
The pun is mightier than the sword.
Frank McDonald
‘The pen is mightier than the sword’
(Example of metonymy)
Regrettably does not accord
With literal reality.
Old Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase
(Though others had the thought before),
Claiming the written word outweighs
The iron panoply of war.
The heirs of Orwell or Voltaire
May write their brave polemics still,
But words, as Falstaff said, are air.
No nib is sharp enough to kill.
Old Bulwer-Lytton was no sphinx
Whose wisdom cannot be ignored;
The Lord help anyone who thinks
The pen is mightier than the sword.
G.M. Davis
Some ancient maxims tend to drive me wild,
The ones my elders always liked to say,
For instance, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ —
For I was sorely beaten in my day.
Although they say ‘It never rains, but pours’,
My teeth on edge, I curse the gods in vain
As squeaky wipers, smearing, scratch and score
My dirty windscreen in the spitting rain.
‘There is no smoke without a fire’, I’m told.
In evidence that this is quite untrue,
Take those who burn the toast, or do make bold
To choose a Pope or angry bees subdue.
Chamberlain, smiling, held his text on high,
Deluded, came in triumph from abroad
And smugly told his wife in bed that night,
‘In truth, the pen is mightier than the sword.’
Tim Raikes
Ink beats the sight of meadow, turf or lawn:
The pen is mightier than the sward.
Shakespeare cheers Macbeth, though Caesar-born:
The pen is mightier than Siward.
The writer tops the conjuror for tricks:
The pen is mightier than the sawed.
Print shames the plague, hits purulence for six:
The pen is mightier than the sored.
Nibs pip the pimps and any prostitute:
The pen is mightier than those whored.
Man Booker? Better than the Golden Boot:
The pen is mightier than this award.
Type trounces battlers — fight and you’re the ones
The pen is mightier than, thus warred.
As we can see, the pen chops down the puns —
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Bill Greenwell
The ensign, fooled by the decoy,
Was cornered, weak with thirst.
The tribesmen gathered round the boy
Prepared to do their worst.
‘Kill me, and you precipitate
The British Empire’s might.’
The chief’s reply we might translate
As ‘Bring it on! We Fight!’
‘You need not think that no one knows,’
The boy said, ‘of your crimes:
The Earl, my father, will compose
A letter to the Times.’
His captor took a pace back then
And turned to face his horde.
‘Cast down your arms,’ he said. ‘The pen
Is mightier than the sword.’
Noel Petty
I thought the idea perfect; a magazine aimed at those who can’t or can hardly read. It had everything: bloody photo war stories by Andy McNab, a dumb (no speech bubbles) superhero strip and an agony aunt to whom you’d sketch your problems in crayon. Naturally it was aggressive, like its target readership of Borstal boys, squaddies and truculent lags; I’d have called it The Rapier had they not smirked, misconstruing a reference to forced intercourse. My brother, the idealist, wouldn’t ‘pander to the yahoos’. He devised a rival publication, all text, no illustration; Fielding and Dickens his inexpensive lead writers. He’d have called it Stylo if I hadn’t reminded him of British Francophobia. Counter-commonsensically, he prospered, I foundered; you could ‘read’ my publication in minutes, his proved better value by requiring months. Sales figures conceded what my entrepreneurial pride never could: The Pen is mightier than The Sword.
Adrian Fry
Competition No. 2550: Child’s play
You are invited to submit either a children’s story or a poem written in the style of an established author who has never published in that genre. Maximum 150 words/16 lines. Entries to ‘Competition 2550’ by 19 June or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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