Shakespeare was written in Early Modern English, not Old English. The Canterbury Tales was written in Old English at the end of the 14th century. Shakespeare wasn’t even born until 1564.
Saint Mary's University Writing Centre | Halifax, Nova Scotia
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The best part is, this is basically accurate. See Great Vowel Shift for more details.
(Source: xelaetc)
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Neil Gaiman’s graduation address at the University of the Arts is among our 10 Great Commencement Speeches by Writers.
(via englishmajormade)
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Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.
— Stephen Leacock (via writingquotes) -
Honestly, those people who say everything has all been said before are so, so wrong.
YOLO.
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When someone says Shakespeare is written in Old English
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Things that make you go hmm…
Quotes to make you think!
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweetAristotle
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Listen to Matt de la Peña’s moving and funny keynote from SLJ’s Public Library Think Tank.
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![allthingslinguistic:
Why Do We Hate Certain Words? The curious phenomenon of word aversion.
It’s about to get really moist in here. But first, some background is in order. The phenomenon of word aversion—seemingly pedestrian, inoffensive words driving some people up the wall—has garnered increasing attention over the past decade or so. In a recent post on Language Log, University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman defined the concept as “a feeling of intense, irrational distaste for the sound or sight of a particular word or phrase, not because its use is regarded as etymologically or logically or grammatically wrong, nor because it’s felt to be over-used or redundant or trendy or non-standard, but simply because the word itself somehow feels unpleasant or even disgusting.”[…]
Word aversion is marked by strong reactions triggered by the sound, sight, and sometimes even the thought of certain words, according to Liberman. “Not to the things that they refer to, but to the word itself,” he adds. “The feelings involved seem to be something like disgust.”
Participants on various message boards and online forums have noted serious aversions to, for instance, squab, cornucopia, panties, navel, brainchild, crud, slacks, crevice, and fudge, among numerous others. Ointment, one Language Log reader noted in 2007, “has the same mouth-feel as moist, yet it’s somehow worse.” In response to a 2009 post on the subject by Ben Zimmer, one commenter confided: “The word meal makes me wince. Doubly so when paired with hot.” (Nineteen comments later, someone agreed, declaring: “Meal is a repulsive word.”)
The opposite of this is when a word or phrase is particularly pleasant-sounding, for no particular reason. The classic example of this is “cellar door”, although I’m not sure if it has a name paralleling “word aversion”.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/074f19e614eee4d39887ad3cb3637033/tumblr_mkycd1ns991rwewyjo1_1280.jpg)
Why Do We Hate Certain Words? The curious phenomenon of word aversion.
It’s about to get really moist in here. But first, some background is in order. The phenomenon of word aversion—seemingly pedestrian, inoffensive words driving some people up the wall—has garnered increasing attention over the past decade or so. In a recent post on Language Log, University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman defined the concept as “a feeling of intense, irrational distaste for the sound or sight of a particular word or phrase, not because its use is regarded as etymologically or logically or grammatically wrong, nor because it’s felt to be over-used or redundant or trendy or non-standard, but simply because the word itself somehow feels unpleasant or even disgusting.”[…]
Word aversion is marked by strong reactions triggered by the sound, sight, and sometimes even the thought of certain words, according to Liberman. “Not to the things that they refer to, but to the word itself,” he adds. “The feelings involved seem to be something like disgust.”
Participants on various message boards and online forums have noted serious aversions to, for instance, squab, cornucopia, panties, navel, brainchild, crud, slacks, crevice, and fudge, among numerous others. Ointment, one Language Log reader noted in 2007, “has the same mouth-feel as moist, yet it’s somehow worse.” In response to a 2009 post on the subject by Ben Zimmer, one commenter confided: “The word meal makes me wince. Doubly so when paired with hot.” (Nineteen comments later, someone agreed, declaring: “Meal is a repulsive word.”)
The opposite of this is when a word or phrase is particularly pleasant-sounding, for no particular reason. The classic example of this is “cellar door”, although I’m not sure if it has a name paralleling “word aversion”.
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What’s Up With “That” and “Which”?
