Charles, I thought I was the only anal retentive pedantic old fart worrying about spelling and misuse of apostrophes etc. ! I'm sure a literate wordsmith like Michael Flanders knew exactly what he was doing and did it tongue in cheek (not to say beard in ear'ole as well!). The important thing is it works and always gets a laugh, even if it wouldn't get an Alpha double plus from Randolph Quirk. The F&S oeuvres have been re-released on CD for anyone who doesn't have the LPs. We have a friend,suitably hirsute, who used to do "Madeira" as his party piece, and we all had the F&S repertoire by heart in the '60s, rather as later generations quote "Monty Python". As my wife collects hippos (no jokes about my, waistline or toilet habits, please), "Mud, Mud" is a sort of anthem to us!
:o)
RtS