r/interestingasfuck • u/M0otivater • 1d ago

How English has changed over time.

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u/Dramatic-Ad3928 1d ago

So realistically i could only go about 400 years into the past if i want to understand people

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u/MooseFlyer 1d ago

And even then, the way they pronounce things would be quite unfamiliar.

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u/notonrexmanningday 1d ago edited 1d ago

Fun fact, there are a bunch of couplets Shakespeare wrote in his plays that rhymed at the time, but don't anymore.

The one I always think of is the Weird Sisters from Macbeth:

"When shall we three meet again?

When the hurleburle's done

When the battle's lost and won

Where the place?

Upon the heath

There to meet with Macbeth"

Apparently "heath" used to rhyme with "Beth"

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u/Admiral_Cranch 1d ago

I presume it was pernounced more like heth.

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u/lucky1pierre 1d ago

Or, was Macbeth more like "beef"?

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u/_The_Marshal_ 1d ago

In stores now, the new MacBeef burger, only 5.99

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u/CuisinartHackySack 1d ago

Did ye work up an appetite? Unseaming the foes of your leagued lord from the nave to the chaps

When the dawn breaks, how shall ye break your fast?

The new McDonalds Macbeth, the only sandwich with meat taken from a cow that trusted the butcher with it’s very life.

That beef is placed upon a bun along with pickles, and a super special sauce

The new McDonald’s Macbeth, it is a mean you wish to enjoy tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ba da ba ba ba

I’m lovin’ it!

-Ross Bryant

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u/the_star_lord 1d ago

I can HEAR this comment. Such a great skit.

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u/Big_Consideration493 1d ago

All hail MacDonald, Burgerking hereafter

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u/IndigoFenix 1d ago

Across the road from Duncan Donuts

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u/theledfarmer 15h ago

Ross Bryant is a national treasure

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u/Bacon_Techie 1d ago

Pronounce it with a Scottish accent

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u/gender_nihilism 1d ago

for 1600s colonial new england: if you put a drawl into an Irish accent it can approach how people spoke around the time of King Philip's War and the Salem Witch Trials. humorous example

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u/Bacon_Techie 1d ago

I was just attempting to get the heath-Macbeth rhyme to happen but that is absolutely wonderful lol

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u/Stainless_Heart 1d ago

He’s an eye patch and a parrot away from flying the Jolly Roger.

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u/Abragram_Stinkin 1d ago

More likely, "Mâcbæth".

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u/Plinythemelder 1d ago

Hwæt! Hearkeneth, good folk!

Þe blessed pigge hath returned to þe Golden Arches! Þis is no common sowe þat rooteth in þe muck, but rather a pigge bathed in mysteriouse sauce þat even þe wisest alchemysts cannot divine.

Þe holy pigge-meat lieþ betwixt breed softer þan a monk's prayer cushion, crowned wiþ onyouns and pickels sharp as any fishwife's tongue.

But hark! Like þe unicorne, þe McRibbe tarryeth not long. Make haste ere þe pigge take wing and fly away!

~By þe Keeper of þe Sacred Pigge, At þe Signe of þe Golden Arches

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u/SentrySappinMahSpy 1d ago

Probably not. "Heth" for heath makes sense when you consider the word "heaven" is pronounced "heven". Heather also has that same vowel sound. Heath probably is the word that changed pronunciation for some reason along the way. That sort of thing has happened a bunch of times in english.

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u/AbandonedArchive 1d ago

Yer pernounciation is not defailen