Beware What You Call “Good English”

Listen to the oft-quoted British playwright, William Shakespeare, who noticed half a millennium ago, “Good English writers cannot be understood today.”

As if to prove the Bard right (two centuries before he was born), Thomas Hoceleve commented about something written by Chaucer,

Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; 

Lest you don't read “English”, he's saying, that speech changes every thousand years or so, and words, although they contain hidden human traits that once sounded nice and strong, become misunderstood. Language changes. Get used to it!