Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, English, history, inspiration, language, Thoughts, time travel, what to pack when going back, Writers, writing on February 28, 2026|
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This is fascinating, educational and fun. One of the things they may not tell you when they give you the keys to the time travel machine is that language is a living thing, and English is now very old.
Linguist and teacher Colin Gorrie decided to illustrate how the English language has changed over the last 1000 years by writing a post that slowly transitions from the modern day, in hundred year increments. How far back can you understand?
How far back in time can you understand English?
He arrives, he checks in. He walks to the cute B&B he’d picked out online. And he writes it all up like any good travel blogger would: in that breezy LiveJournal style from 25 years ago, perhaps, in his case, trying a little too hard.
But as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words, and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger’s voice is replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler.
By the middle of his post, he’s writing in what might as well be a foreign language.
The last 300 years aren’t so bad, but then things start to get squiffy enough that I hope you’re planning to pack a fairly comprehensive dictionary. The success of your time travel adventures may depend on it!
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J.R. Johnson 
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