A discussion I was having on another board, led to my reading a book on Shakespeare's grammar (link). The opening paragraph of the Introduction gave me pause to laugh out loud:
Quote:
Elizabethan English, on a superficial view, appears to present this great point of difference from the English of modern times, that in the former any irregularities whatever, whether in the formation of words or in the combination of words into sentences, are allowable. In the first place, almost any part of speech can be used as any other part of speech. An adverb can be used as a verb,"They askance their eyes" (R. of L.); as a noun, "the backward and abysm of time" (Sonn.); or as an adjective, "a seldom pleasure" {Sonn.). Any noun, adjective, or neuter verb can be used as an active verb. You can "happy" your friend, "malice" or "foot" your enemy, or "fall" an axe on his neck. An adjective can be used as an adverb; and you can speak and act "easy," "free," "excellent:" or as a noun, and you can talk of "fair" instead of "beauty," and "a pale" instead of "a paleness." Even the pronouns are not exempt from these metamorphoses. A "he" is used for a man, and a lady is described by a gentleman as "the fairest she he has yet beheld." Spenser asks us to

   "Come down and learne the little what
   That Thomalin can sayne."—Calend. Jul. v. 31 (Nares).

And Heywood, after dividing human diners into three classes thus—

   "Some with small fare they be not pleased,
   Some with much fare they be diseased,
   Some with mean fare be scant appeased,"

adds with truly Elizabethan freedom—

   "But of all somes none is displeased."
And it just keeps on getting better. You cannot be faulted for reading or skimming the book yourself. I wonder if there is some peever who has taken Shakespeare to task for his grammar or spelling. I also wonder if their is a grammar nazi who has produced anything nearly so fine as Chaucer or Shakespeare has writ. Come to think of it, some in the Early Modern English period began to criticize Chaucer for his not scanning well, and the first instance of Shakespearian criticism extant, towards the end of the 17th century by Thomas Rhymer (an historian, not a literateur) savages him for not writing Neo-Classical tragedies à la The then-in-vogue French.

[And, it just dawned on me that the Edwin Abbott Abbott who penned Shakespearian Grammar (linked to above) is none other than the very author of Flatland.]

Ceci n'est pas un seing.