In the poem “The Rum Tum Tugger” by T S Eliot, I found a use of do that looks utterly weird to me. This is the first stanza:
The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:
If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.
If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,
If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse.
Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat—
And there isn't any call for me to shout it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!
The last three lines repeat in every stanza.
My problem is that I cannot understand the use of the "do" in bold.
If it were an emphatic do it should have been does.
Is the poet overlooking the grammar for it to look nicer?
Best Answer
I think Eliot wanted to match it with the 'do' in the preceding line.
Or it was 'As he does* do' (which — although whimsical — is a grammatical sentence), but he changed the 'does' to 'do' to fit the style and meter of the poem.
*(I believe it's the emphatic does but he changed it to do.)