[stylist] Old English truly frustrates me

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Jim,

Actually, the King James Bible and Shakespeare are not old English but
early modern English. Old English doesn't sound anything like modern
English instead sounding like a foreign language. Not only would old
English be incomprehensible to most of us, but written material in old
English would still follow medieval writing structure which was before
most grammar rules existed like spaces between words, punctuation,
capitalization and paragraphs.

Understanding early modern English can be difficult. Personally, I never
found "getting the gist" of early modern English difficult, but certain
words weren't familiar to me. It helps to read with a dictionary and any
study material you can find to supplement your reading. It may take some
longer to read material like this, and others can pick it up a bit
quicker. It's just a more archaic manner of speaking than we currently
speak, but it is modern English, not old English or even middle English,
but early modern English.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 8
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 16:45:34 +0000
From: "Homme, James" <james.homme at highmark.com>
To: Writer's Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [stylist] Old English Truly Frustrates Me
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Hi,
I went to http://www.poetry.org. I found some of the poems they show
from famous poets. Some of them are in English old, like the King James
Bible, but more cryptic. How do you begin to crack the code? <grin>

Jim