Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated to EModE) is the stage of the English language used from the beginning of the Tudor period until the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English in the late 15th century to the transition to Modern English during the mid to late 17th century.
Prior to and following the accession of James I to the English throne in 1603 the emerging English standard began to influence the spoken and written Middle Scots of Scotland.
Modern readers of English are generally able to understand texts written in the late phase of the Early Modern English period (e.g. the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare), while texts from the earlier phase (such as Le Morte d'Arthur) may present more difficulties. The Early Modern English of the early 17th century forms the base of the grammatical and orthographical conventions that survive in Modern English.
Read more about Early Modern English: Orthography
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““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
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Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
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—Andrew Lang (1844–1912)
“The difference is wide that the sheets will not decide.”
—English proverb, collected in John Ray, English Proverbs (1670)