Entertainment / Literature / Modern English: The English language as spoken between about 1450 and the modern day. The language you are speaking now and the language Shakespeare spoke are both considered examples of Modern English. Modern English is distinct from Middle English (spoken c. 1100 to 1400) in that vowels are pronounced differently after the Great Vowel Shift (1400-1450). Both Middle English and Modern English are distinct from Old English in that Old English and Middle English had numerous letters (such as the letters ash, thorn, and eth) and some sounds (such as yogh) that were used much more commonly. Old English also used elaborate declensions that have mostly fallen out of use in Modern English. To avoid irritating your teacher, do not confuse Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. This diagram will help you contrast them. A good rule of thumb is that, (a) if you can read it easily, it's probably modern English, (b) if you can read it with some difficulty, but there are many words 'misspelled' and an occasional strange letter, it's probably Middle English, and (c) if you can't read it all, and it looks like a foreign language with letters you don't recognize, you are probably looking at Old English. See Middle English and Old English.
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Modern Adverb Synonyms: up to date, current, contemporary, today's, new, fresh, novel, brand-new, up to the minute, present-day, latest, new-fashioned, newfangled, modish, in vogue, fashionable, in fashion, stylish, in style, chic, flavor of the month
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Entertainment / Literature / Middle English: The version of English spoken after the Norman Conquest from 1066 but before 1450 or so. Before the Norman Conquest, the common version of English was Old English or Anglo-Saxon, a Germanic language t MORE
Entertainment / Literature / Early Modern English: Modern English covers the time-frame from about 1450 or so up to the present day. However, linguists sometimes subdivide Modern English into 'Early Modern' (c. 1450-1800) and 'Late Modern' (c. 1800 to MORE
Entertainment / Literature / Old English: Also known as Anglo-Saxon, Old English is the ancestor of Middle English and Modern English. It is a Germanic language that was introduced to the British Isles by tribes such as the Angles, Saxons, an MORE