IE and Substrates and Time

[Glen Gordon]

ME (GLEN):
 For all intents and purposes, Early Modern English is different
 enough from Modern English to make comprehension difficult after only
 400 years or so. By comparing even Shakespeare's English to Chaucer
 shows how much things can change in an even shorter period.

MODERATOR:
 [...] the language is such that the jokes can be explained--as with
 Shakespeare.  Before the jokes in the _Canterbury Tales_ can be
 explained, the language itself must be explicated.

Well, as far as I understand, Early Modern English has slang terms and
such like for instance the rather rude "to die", that mean nothing other
than "to cease to exist" in Contemporary English. In some cases, the
language still needs to be "explained".

MODERATOR:
 so how do we measure the difference?

...which is of course a matter of interpretation and in effect, we're
both right/wrong about Shakespeare's English. Oh well.

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Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com