On Warren G. Harding

As for Warren G. Harding, H.L. Mencken noted, "He wrote the worst English I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abyss of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

Poet E.E. Cummings kicked Harding when he was down, way down: "The only man, woman, or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead."