Ye knowe ek that in forme of speche is chaunge
Within a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem, and yet they spake hem so.
You know that even forms of speech can change
Within a thousand years, and words we know
Were useful once, seem to us wondrous strange —
Foolish or forced — and yet men spoke them so.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet, Troilus and Criseyde, c. 1385
