Very much appreciated, in all seriousness. You (well, maybe YOU might) just can't imagine how far Wm. has sunk into popular, idiomatic English, even here in the Americas.
He essentially invented the Modern mother tongue.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm...............I am an American; born and bred and quite a few generation back of me too! :-)
My son is in grad school studying Medivial Literature. Here at OU they are doing the Chaucer series book by book to use in colleges where they research what various people have to say about each piece of work and include it in the books they publish. He will be going for his PhD after graduaing in May from the University of Oklahoma with his Master's.
My son would agree with everything you are saying and so do I.