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Quote by Serhii Plokhy

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The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus

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Serhii Plokhy

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“In Old English, thou (thee, thine, etc.) was singular and you was plural. But during the thirteenth century, you started to be used as a polite form of the singular - probably because people copied the French way of talking, where vous was used in that way. English then became like French, which has tu and vous both possible for singulars; and that allowed a choice. The norm was for you to be used by inferiors to superiors - such as children to parents, or servants to masters, and thou would be used in return. But thou was also used to express special intimacy, such as when addressing God. It was also used when the lower classes talked to each other. The upper classes used you to each other, as a rule, even when they were closely related. So, when someone changes from thou to you in a conversation, or the other way round, it conveys a different pragmatic force. It will express a change of attitude, or a new emotion or mood.”

ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareOld English
Author:David Crystal
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“In the earliest English, the word bully was created by borrowing boel from the Dutch language. It means lover or sweetheart. Today, it is used to talk about someone who gets off by intimidating others because making others feel inferior is the only way for them to feel better about themselves maybe. Oh, how the words have fallen – literally fallen from grace!”

TimeLanguageChangeGraceWordsBullyingSad But TrueBullying QuotesOld English
Book:Red Sugar, No More
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“To make a tarte of strawberyes," wrote Margaret Parker in 1551, "take and strayne theym with the yolkes of four eggs, and a little whyte breade grated, then season it up with suger and swete butter and so bake it." And Jess, who had spent the past year struggling with Kant's Critiques, now luxuriated in language so concrete. Tudor cookbooks did not theorize, nor did they provide separate ingredient lists, or scientific cooking times or temperatures. Recipes were called receipts, and tallied materials and techniques together. Art and alchemy were their themes, instinct and invention. The grandest performed occult transformations: flora into fauna, where, for example, cooks crushed blanched almonds and beat them with sugar, milk, and rose water into a paste to "cast Rabbets, Pigeons, or any other little bird or beast." Or flour into gold, gilding marchpane and festive tarts. Or mutton into venison, or fish to meat, or pig to fawn, one species prepared to stand in for another.”

Old BooksPoultryOld EnglishFaunaTransformationsCookbooksJess BachTudor
Book:The Cookbook Collector
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“I go to the larder for the quinces and stop in amazement. For the larder is brimming over with food. Baskets of field mushrooms. Trugs of green apples and yellow pears. A metal bath containing two pink crabs. Slabs of newly churned butter as bright as a dandelion flower. Wheels of pale yellow cheese the size of my head. An earthenware bowl of cobnuts. A ham soaking in a pail of water.”

Food PreparationOld English
Book:Miss Eliza's English Kitchen
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“Shelby looked over to see Andrew silently mouthing syllables to himself, as if he were part of an ecstatic rite. He grinned as he bit fricatives and tongued plosives. He was tasting English origins, mulling over words ripped from bronze-smelling hoards. Words that had slept beneath centuries of dust and small rain, sharp and bright as scale mail. Poetry had never moved her quite so much as drama. She loved the shock of colloquy, the beat and treble of words doing what they had to on stage. Andrew preferred the echo of poems buried alive.”

Fantasy FictionPoetic ProseOld English
Book:Pile of Bones
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“Now! Forgive me not for what I say Much less what I feel... My lady, You the one who stole my soul and hid it thou heart My lady! Gave my this curse of love!... Love, love gave it life But at what cost? Now... Now I know not what is to belong to my self I have lost my will to live if not by your side. But how tis' came to be? I know little of what came to pass but one thing I know My love for you is true I belong to you”

LoveOld English
Author:Alexander Caban Jr.
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