Dragaera

Evolving language

Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com
Sat Aug 17 21:23:38 PDT 2002

Lydia Nickerson wrote:
> What amazes me about Shakespeare is how well I can understand 
> language that is 600 years old.  [...]
> [...] I can enjoy Shakespeare needing little more than 
> footnotes and an occasional use of a good dictionary, proves to me 
> that English is not inefficient and ponderous, but rather it is 
> flexible and remarkably resilient, even when left in the untutored 
> hands of someone like myself.

Well, Shakespeare was just a genius with the English language.  My wife
and I went to see a live performance of Much Ado About Nothing when we
were in Manhattan over Memorial Day; my wife is Chinese and although she
speaks English pretty well, she has difficulty understanding most movies
and television shows.  I was a tad concerned that she would be lost by
the language of Shakespeare, as well, but I needn't have worried.  As
accessible as that play is, she had no problem at all understanding
virtually everything.  That says a lot about the writing.  (It didn't
hurt that the venue was almost microscopic, as well; we were perhaps
twenty feet from the actors.)
-- 
Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com	http://www.exit.com/
Exit Consulting                 http://www.gpsclock.com/