Originally Posted By: zmjezhd
That's why we can understand Shakespeare and Chaucer in spite of the chaotic spelling and lack of punctuation.

Well, Shakespeare at least. YOU might understand Chaucer easily. Personally I only understand Chaucer with difficulty, after reading the sentence three times. Not because of the spelling and punctuation, but because his vocabulary, usage, grammar, pronunciation, etc is probably more different from Shakespeare than Shakespeare is from us.