Actually, that’s not Old(e) English, Night-Gaunt. That’s somewhere between Middle English and Modern English (the edition of the Merry Tales I quoted was from about 1592, although it may have originated even earlier; Shakespeare makes reference to the Merry Tales in Much Ado About Nothing). Shakespeare wrote Modern English, although using a lot of forms, spelling, and vocabulary that are now obsolete. Chaucer wrote Middle English, and it’s almost (but not quite) indecipherable to modern readers. If you want to see Old English, try reading Beowulf in its original form.
If you truly think in complete sentences, I feel sorry for you. It’s so much more effective (and liberating) to think in fleeting abstracts, concepts, impressions, and other inexpressibles, and only devote the neural processing-power to sentence structure when communicating my thoughts is key. Language, not only vocabulary but grammar, exists to serve conceptualization, not the other way around.
Literalism and hide-bound formalism are killers of creativity and emotional expression. It’s the difference between Finnegan’s Wake and an automobile maintenance manual. It’s the difference between Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame” and Pat Boone’s “Isn’t That a Shame.”
Actually, that’s not Old(e) English, Night-Gaunt. That’s somewhere between Middle English and Modern English (the edition of the Merry Tales I quoted was from about 1592, although it may have originated even earlier; Shakespeare makes reference to the Merry Tales in Much Ado About Nothing). Shakespeare wrote Modern English, although using a lot of forms, spelling, and vocabulary that are now obsolete. Chaucer wrote Middle English, and it’s almost (but not quite) indecipherable to modern readers. If you want to see Old English, try reading Beowulf in its original form.
If you truly think in complete sentences, I feel sorry for you. It’s so much more effective (and liberating) to think in fleeting abstracts, concepts, impressions, and other inexpressibles, and only devote the neural processing-power to sentence structure when communicating my thoughts is key. Language, not only vocabulary but grammar, exists to serve conceptualization, not the other way around.
Literalism and hide-bound formalism are killers of creativity and emotional expression. It’s the difference between Finnegan’s Wake and an automobile maintenance manual. It’s the difference between Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame” and Pat Boone’s “Isn’t That a Shame.”