I'm sure glad we don't have the dialect problems so common a few hundred years ago, when in England about fifty miles from home, a traveller could ask for "eggs" unsuccessfully, because in that locality they were called "eyren" (? sp.)
1. And certaynly our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken whan I was borne.
For we Englysshe men ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is neuer stedfaste but euer
wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth and dyscreaseth another season. And that comyn Englysshe that is
spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother. In so moch that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were
in a shippe in Tamyse, for to haue sayled ouer the see into Zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte
Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them; And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in-to an
hows and axed for mete; and specyally he axyd after eggys; And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude
not speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde haue
hadde egges, and she vnderstode him not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wold haue eyren: then the
good wyf sayd that she vnderstood him wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or
eyren. Certainly it is harde to playse eueryman by cause of dyuersite and chaunge of langage.
(emphasis added) (Harris & Taylor, p. 86)
