Language Slips 2

This poem was written after a long staff meeting with the old man holding forth on why the school cannot "take a break" and must keep working "much more harder". While this is a common langauge slip, the idea of the poem is that the wrong word used actually points at a very narrow way of perceiving success.

"We must work much
more harder so that
we can maintain our
results."
hard harder ...
is there any word
to stand between -er
and -est?
What began as a cynical sneer
at the old man's remarks
transformed itself into a query
good, better, more better
much more better
we learnt -est as a destination
it meant you had finished
and could start a
new series of chants:
small, smaller, smallest
big, bigger, biggest
soft, softer, softest
later, made aware of the
frailties of a small
citystate
we learnt
-est as a destination
that secured survival :
"ours is the busiest port in the world"
"ours is the cleanest & greenest in SouthEastAsia..."
then creeps in,
via anxiety filled analogy
"what if you can't be the best?"
"more better" fills the void
then it becomes strategy:
in a world of misused expressions
why not make some of them useful?
after all
"good better best
never let it rest
let your good be better
and your better best"
if -est is a state of completion
we have no place for it.
So we dream of our more brighter
tommorrows
marvel at our more taller skyscrapers and laugh at more
funnier sitcoms.
We pray a blessing against the curse of contentment:
"Consumatum est?*"
no,never.

* - Latin for the words of Christ on the cross " It is finished" - probably can't put it into a question - but i claim poetic licence.

The poem works through a slip. It also weaves together fragments of memory. I remember the Productivity campaign of the early 80s with Teamy the Bee. Why did a campaign aimed at the adult workforce have such a ridiculous "good better best" song? Why did it have a Bee mascot? Was it really meant for more than just the workforce, was it to generate a sense of continuous achievement in even the young. The poem pretends that the policy of misusing language is deliberate: poking fun at how common the language slip is and the fact that pragmatic Singapore lets it go by unnoticed.