Because the English in this period believed they had a "refined taste", very few explicit words were used, but instead correct words. However, "During and after the First World War, the flowery Victorian language was torn to pieces and replaced by more nervous, R-rated prose styles." (articles.latimes.com) In order for poets like Owen and Sasoon to convey their message, they had to use precise and straightforward language. They refused to soften their language to soften the blow on the meaning of their poems. Sasoon describes the English soldiers as “damned” and talks about the “stink” on the battlefield. Owens vividly describes the soldiers in “Mental Cases” whose “bared teeth…grin like the evil teeth of skulls” and how “the sun looks like a bloodstain” and the night turns blood black. (poemhunter.com) how damned, lewd, blood-black, stinking, and so on intensely describe the soldiers’