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Comment Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score 2, Insightful) 838

Why does Tony Long start with the Comic book generation? Look at all the bad things that have happened to English since the 11th century! Sloppy writers have stopped using the letter /ð/ and have replaced it with such barbarities as /th/. English's accusative case has been wantonly abandoned except for in a handful of words ('whom,' 'him'-- where the /m/ is a vestigular inflection). Yes, back in the good old days, everyone wrote good, proper English, like this:

Fæder ure u e eart on heofonum; Si in nama gehalgod to becume in rice gewure ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd u us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele solice.

Seriously, all languages change. People don't like to hear this, but it's true. If the written language doesn't keep up, then the vernacular starts to look less and less like the official written language. Written English is already several steps removed from spoken English (for example, all those silent /e/'s used to be pronounced). Someday, inevitably, spoken English will evolve into something so different from today's English that people will need glosses and/or a translation to read this Slashdot thread, just like we can't read old English or some Middle English without aid.

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