Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/281

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252
The Sources of Standard English.

be seen by the following Table. I take from each author a passage (in his usual style) containing fifty substantives, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs; and this is the proportion in which the words are employed:

English Words that are now Obsolete Romance Words
Old English Poetry, before 1066 25
Old English Prose, before 1066 12
Orrmin and Layamon, about 1200 10
Ancren Riwle, about 1220 9
Genesis and Exodus, Bestiary, about 1230 8
Owl and Nightingale, about 1240 7
Northern Psalter, about 1250 6
Proverbs of Hending, about 1260 5
Love song (page 156), about 1270 4 1
Havelok, Harrowing Hell, about 1280 4 2
Robert of Gloucester, about 1300 3 4
Robert Manning, in 1303 2 6
Shoreham, about 1320 3 3
Auchinleck Romances, about 1330 3 4
Hampole, about 1340 3 5
Minot, about 1350 3 6
Langland, in 1362 2 7
Chaucer (Pardoner's Tale), in 1390 2 8
Pecock in 1450 1 10
Tyndale, in 1530 12
Addison, in 1710 17
Macaulay, in 1850 25
Gibbon (sometimes) 44
Morris (sometimes)[1] 3
  1. I give specimens of the two last in my Seventh Chapter. They seem to be writing in two languages that have little in common.