English Has Come A Long, Long Way...

I often wonder what would happen if Shakespeare were to be transported in a time machine to our world today. What would he think? How would he react?

Yes, Willie would probably tell me "thou hast too much time on thy hands if thou spendeth it wondering about such flights of fancy." But only after he found his feet.

You see, Willie would be blown away by some of the comforts we take for granted. For instance, that box we walk into. The doors close all by themselves...just like magic. When they open, we are magically in a different place.

"What callest thou this contraption?" Willie would ask in utter amazement.

An elevator. You would think nothing would phase a man who just landed his time machine 400 years into the future.

"Ah, I see. It was not magic after all. It elevated us, because it is an elevator."

This Willie guy is pretty handy with his English, isn't he? But that won't get him far these days. A hundred years ago, even fifty, he could have figured out just about every new word by tracing its roots (often to Greek or Latin). But not today.

"What are those...those...those, things?"

Why that's a TV, with a VCR and a DVD player. Over there, it's a CD player, an AM and FM radio and an amp. This is a PC, with CDRW and floppy drives, a powerful CPU, A and C drive, and more RAM than a MAC.

"What? Thy alphabet seems a bit confusing."

Once upon a time, the meaning of a word could always be guessed by simply tracing the entomology of the word back to its lowest roots.

"Thou meanest 'etymology', dost thou not? Entomology is the study of insects and bugs."

I knew that.

I took out a 'Kleenex' because my nose was running.

"But how dost thy nose run?"

I suppose the same way I drivest on a parkway and parkest in the driveway. Or how it doesn't matter whether we fill in a form or fill out a form...either way, the taxman gets the last laugh.

I offered to take Willie for a ride.

"That is more like it. There is nothing quite like a horse under one's bottom.'

No, no, no. We don't ride horses anymore. That is a barbaric way to treat such majestic beasts. Now we drive cars...and kill the horses off with the exhaust.

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

Just have a seat in the BMW, Willie, while I turn on the AC and rev up the RPMs on this old V6. Before you know it, we'll be doing 100 mph down the 102.

"More letters and numbers. Have words become redundant in the future?"

Pretty much. As life got more and more complicated, words got more and more complicated. Pretty soon it was taking several minutes just to pronounce a single government department. So real word groups had to be replaced by acronyms ? the first letter of each word. Pass me a CANDY.

"What does CANDY stand for?"

Candy, actually. But maybe I should just leave old Willie guessing. After all, there is just so much to discover in this brave new world. Like why there are so few sundials around. And why some people sleep on the street, while other climb 34 stories to an office tower above to sleep at their desks. And just how do they shrink those liquor bottles for the airlines.

"What is an RSVP? And ASAP? And TLC?"

I had to find just the right way to explain to him that all these crazy letters actually made some kind of sense.

Internal Department of Income Overhaul Transfer Systems.

"Ah, IDIOTS. Now, that I understand!"

About The Author

Like Shakespeare, David Leonhardt is a writer: He is author of:

Inspiration & Motivation To Go: http://www.thehappyguy.com/l/daily-motivation-inspiration.php

The Get Happy Workbook: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-work-book.html

and Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-self-help-book.html

To write your website copy, newsletter or anything else, email him at: info@thehappyguy.com

Info@thehappyguy.com

---

Learn Korean: Part 2 - Social Status in Culture

Part 1 of this series covered the language and language... Read More

Uncommon Facts / Rules of English Language

English is an international language. It has so many grammar... Read More

English Has Come A Long, Long Way...

I often wonder what would happen if Shakespeare were to... Read More

Online IELTS Preparation - Why Does It Make Sense?

Because IELTS is a difficult test. While most agree that... Read More

Learn Italian in Italy

You can combine your love of the Italian language with... Read More

Teaching Reading to English Language Learners

There is an increasing amount of English language learners represented... Read More

Whats In A Word? More Than You Realize

What's in a word? Apparently more than we might want.For... Read More

7 Words Americans Should Stop Using Until Further Investigation

Relationship: Here is a word that is used to qualify,... Read More

Teaching English in Mexico: A Decent Living?

What's more disappointing than a person who makes a promise... Read More

Learning French in Paris

Nothing can be more frustrating than to be in France... Read More

How Ronzoni Italian Foods Helped My Dad Learn English

My dad likes to say, he was made in Italy,... Read More

Can You Understand English?

There is a lot of talk about making English the... Read More

Chinese Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin Overview

Chinese Pinyin is the romanization of the Chinese "written sound".... Read More

How To Learn Spanish Quickly and Easily

Spanish is a very useful language to learn as it... Read More

Don?t Take The Romaji Short-Cut When Learning Japanese

This is an issue many Japanese learners come up against,... Read More

Learn Italian in Your Hometown

Are you interested in learning the Italian language right in... Read More

Show Me the Bunny: Language Acquisition

Some children are really funny about experimenting with speech. Nonetheless,... Read More

Mexican Living: Todays Obsession

I would like to talk about one of my many... Read More

Learn Korean: Part 1 - Asian Languages and Language Families

So, you have always been fascinated by Asian culture have... Read More

Learn Italian for Free

Italian is one of the most widespread languages in the... Read More

English Slang For Perplexed Tourists

I watched the British version of 'Big Brother' recently. That's... Read More

Learning a Foreign Language: Learn from the Blind

In a previous article, you read that to establih your... Read More

Learn to Speak Basic Chinese (Mandarin) Words and Phrases

The Chinese Language and dialectsEach province, each city and even... Read More

Teaching English in Greece - What Do You Need to Know?

The employment situation can be quite uncertain for newcomers to... Read More

GROUSE ... GROUSE ... GROUSE!!!

I realize that we here in the United States consider... Read More