Mediaeval words in modern English

[Johnyxxx]

Hello.

There is a passage in Three Impostors (1895) by Arthur Machen which reads as follows:

When he had settled himself on an exiguous bench, and had ordered some beer, he began to listen to the jangling talk in the public bar beyond; it was a senseless argument, alternately furious and maudlin, with appeals to Bill and Tom, and mediæval survivals of speech, words that Chaucer wrote belched out with zeal and relish, and the din of pots jerked down and coppers rapped smartly on the zinc counter made a thorough bass for it all.

Out of sheer curiosity, I would like to ask if some words that were used in the days of Geoffrey Chaucer are still in usage today. Judging by the aforementioned text, they evidently were some hundred and thrirty years ago.


Thank you very much.

 

[SoothingDave]

See for yourself

https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/millers-prologue-and-tale

Chaucer wrote in Middle English, which uses many words that are familiar today (many with alternate spellings).

 

[probus]

Johnnyxxx, I'd advise you to avoid exiguous. I had to look it up in the dictionary and I'm not exactly illiterate.

 

[Tdol]

Many still are. If you mean Anglo-Saxon vocab, the obvious suspect there is exiguous. People have been campaigning for plain words for hundreds of years- Chaucer would almost certainly have understood what Orwell was recommending in Politics and the English Language, though Chaucer was a figure of the establishment- a diplomat and spy, but as a writer he took things to the roots and included "common" words and tales.

 

[Johnyxxx]

Johnnyxxx, I'd advise you to avoid exiguous. I had to look it up in the dictionary and I'm not exactly illiterate.

I did not use it, Machen did.

 

[TheParser]

NOT A TEACHER


I just wanted to alert any advanced learner that/who is reading this thread that sometimes a native speaker might use the word "exiguous" in a humorous and naughty manner.

 

[Tdol]

In certain company perhaps- I wouldn't use it in a humorous and naughty manner in a pub.