[marron]

Being a Nordic brute

You must have a good feel for the Nordic roots of the English language... have you tried to read through anglosaxon texts?

[Resolute Conservative]

Chaucer gave me pains. I preferred Milton even though he too was a tough read.

[ClearCase_guy]

We may need a Turing test — this sort of reads like it was auto-generated.

[Jack Hydrazine]

English English is the way to go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgPH0tYXJrA

[RonInNaples]

I suffered through every single ‘English’ lit class in high school and college. Found them tedious and boring. Not my cup of teas, so to speak.

To this imbecilic American it always felt to me like British authors prided themselves on wordiness and far-too-proper use of the language. Damn dudes/dudettes: less is more. Stop trying to impress your deceased English instructor and say what you mean.

[thulldud]

Discussing authors, should anyone ever compare Chaucer to the likes of Hamlet, Petrarch or Dante?

Probably not Hamlet, at least. Which reminds me:

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
"I'll draw a sketch of thee.
Which pencil should I use --
2B or not 2B?"

(From another famous author: Spike Milligan)

[SoothingDave]

Do you like Kipling?

I don’t know, I’ve never kippled.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Discussing authors, should anyone ever compare Chaucer to the likes of Hamlet, Petrarch or Dante?

Hamlet?

I thought he moped about in grave yards. Never realized he was an author.

[Billthedrill]

Well, Chaucer is certainly at the top of the list of late 14th-century English authors whose works have survived. It's a very, very short list. If you want to learn the state of the language in 1380, that's who you have.

Literary merit is very much in the eye of the beholder and I doubt if any two scholars' lists would completely agree. That's fine. I don't think my own list of 20 years ago would agree with its successor today, in fact, I can guarantee it. The difference between the 13th century and today is that then, there was more than you had read, and today, there is more than you can read. There's bound to be a few diamonds in that tremendous pile of dung. ;-)

[dr_lew]

Now, go ahead and comment /* on */ whatever insufficiency, inadequacy or imprecision /* is */ to be found in my English.

[CodeToad]

Just another one of WesternCulture's 'America Sucks! Europe is Better!' threads. Thread #5.