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Old 12-04-2008, 04:24 PM   #1
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Exclamation Macro: Old English to New english

Hi,

I'm busy creating a macro which converts old 18th century English into new English. for MS Word.
I have Office 2007 Edition, hopefully it'll work with previous editions as well.
Basically it's just a bunch of 'search and replace' commands for words.

What made me start doing this, is that I'm doing the series of a writer that always has the same spelling errors.
I update old words to newer, when I can, and correct spelling issues with Word where possible.

But that's a lot of work.
So I loaded 50% of the work into a macro, that will convert older words into newer.

It's far from perfect or far from finished,
But if it ever could be finished, it'd probably be a macro of a few MEGS in size...
So it's a work in progress.

Anyone who has old books,and does manual word editing, is encouraged to run this macro.
It should save you at least some hundred words of editing.


The more books I create, the larger the file will be; so during my work I update it regularly.

Apart from not being a list that can change a full book automatically, There are 2 cons to this macro:

1- Every now and then a word can get messed up.
I'd love to hear from anyone using it, which word gets messed up, so I can correct the macro.
2- I am not sure, but I think either the first time you run it,or maybe it is when you have loaded a book for a while and then run it, the macro will give you a popup for every word that needs to be changed.
Those are lots of popups!
You can press the 'Y' knob in the mean time,allowing faster replacing,
However I also had moments when the macro ran without giving popups.
I'm still looking into how I can disable the popups.

I'd suggest to test out the macro on a copy of the text, not on the original!

Enjoy!
Attached Files
File Type: rar OldEng v001.rar (1.8 KB, 456 views)
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Old 12-04-2008, 07:04 PM   #2
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That's a big project, ProDigit. But why?
Eighteenth-century English had its own spelling conventions; I don't see them as errors. And I find that it is quite manageable, especially after reading a few pages, because a person gets into the flow of the language.
Moreover, it is not just the spelling that is different. Recently, I heard a paper in which the lecturer described a shifting use of printing conventions such as capitalisation and italicisation between the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century.

But good luck to you, if you have a need for the tool.
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Old 12-04-2008, 09:40 PM   #3
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It's a bit of work, but I find 1800 century English (as well as Dutch my native language) books really depressive sounding...
All these 'begottheth' and 'forgottheth',I prefer modern language.
Changing the small details that MS Word notes (roughly 5-10% of a document) makes reading the book so much more appealing I find!

If you're reading an old spiritual book, or story book like Lord of the Rings, or something, I agree that it's better to leave the old english in.

for teaching books it's often better to translate to modern English.
Perhaps 1800th century SF might sound better with old language as well...

You see that a lot, that publishers do a re-edition of their books, and generally update the text to modern today English (or other languages).
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Old 12-05-2008, 03:41 AM   #4
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This reminds me of my aunt's high-school students, who didn't read Don Quixote because they couldn't find a translated edition... into Spanish... in Spain.

It's fine having "adapted" versions, though.
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Old 01-25-2009, 07:04 PM   #5
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I think its a good idea, some words no longer exist in English. Ere is not a word anymore, changing that to before will not change the book in any meaningful way. It would make it easier to read
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Old 01-25-2009, 09:01 PM   #6
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I disagree. Take these lines from Byron:

Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Zoл mou sas agapo.

Then consider:

Maid of Athens, before we part,

It doesn't scan. It doesn't sound right.

And the palindrome about Napoleon "Able was I ere I saw Elba" wouldn't work either.
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Old 01-25-2009, 09:56 PM   #7
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i dont read poetry. but that plays by different rules

In Novels though. for the most part, it would not matter
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Old 01-25-2009, 10:15 PM   #8
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Miss Cornelia Otis Skinner's "Our Hearts Ere Young and Gay"
(available here: http://www.archive.org/details/ourhe...eyoun001394mbp)
is just not going to sound right if it is changed to "Our hearts Before Young and Gay."
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Old 01-26-2009, 02:48 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andybaby View Post
I think its a good idea, some words no longer exist in English. Ere is not a word anymore, changing that to before will not change the book in any meaningful way. It would make it easier to read
Does the fact that a word is no longer used in the current spoken language mean that it should be "expurgated" from books written at a time that it was current? I'm afraid that I strongly disagree - books form our "literary heritage" and one thing they do is to keep old words "alive" in the mind of the reader.
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Old 01-26-2009, 04:35 AM   #10
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I think its a good idea, some words no longer exist in English. Ere is not a word anymore, changing that to before will not change the book in any meaningful way. It would make it easier to read
I'm not a native English speaker, but I would never make that change, and I wouldn't change "thou" and "thee" to "you". Unless I were making an adapted version for easy reading (for children, for people with just basic English knowledge...), but then I would make that fact clear.
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Old 01-26-2009, 11:26 AM   #11
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well some words changed in meaning over time;like in the book above mentioned by patricia
Gay had a different meaning than it does today.
Another word I read in a book was "intercourse".
the funny thing is, in the book the meaning was more similar to 'friendship' or 'fellowship' like normal school friends have.
the meaning today is something totally different.

I agree on poetry it's not really a good thing, but on normal romans / fictions or non-fictions as well as study guides or study books, it makes them easier to process.

One is not changing the meaning of the book, but makes it easier to read and understand.
I mean if you love language history you'll probably hate the idea of this macro.
But the majority, if they could choose would probably prefer a refreshed version into modern today English.

Same goes with the bible. Why do so few people read it? partly because it's just written in another language (Eg old King James, 18th century English) that most people no longer can relate to.
Get a modern today translation, and many will say it's a much more pleasant book to read!
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Old 01-26-2009, 11:47 AM   #12
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Another word I read in a book was "intercourse".
the funny thing is, in the book the meaning was more similar to 'friendship' or 'fellowship' like normal school friends have.
the meaning today is something totally different.
"social intercourse" is still a perfectly "acceptable" expression, meaning, basically, friendship.
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Old 01-26-2009, 01:35 PM   #13
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In some books, like the Bible, it's the meaning that's important and its necessary to have new translations and updates to get the message across.
However, in a lot of literature it's the words and language that are important. There is a benefit in reading books whose language challenges you a little.

And 'intercourse' has the same meaning it always has. 'Sexual intercourse' is just a subset of the larger meaning. Just ask the residents of Intercourse, Pennsylvania or Intercourse, Alabama.

Last edited by BenG; 01-26-2009 at 01:42 PM.
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Old 01-26-2009, 07:18 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Patricia View Post
Miss Cornelia Otis Skinner's "Our Hearts Ere Young and Gay"
(available here: http://www.archive.org/details/ourhe...eyoun001394mbp)
is just not going to sound right if it is changed to "Our hearts Before Young and Gay."
there is the problem, in this its closer to Were no?

its a word that doesnt exist, and yet has multiple meanings. I used it as an example because im reading the Barsoom Series, and every time ere is used, It can be exchanged for Before. In every instance.

language changes and we have to change with it, Poetry is going to get lost in translation, Hell i have already seen this, Poems written in English, but then have to be translated into English, and sometimes, even need paragraphs explaining the line too!

translating text from Old English to Modern English will keep the text readable for our children. and since we Live in the Digital Age, keeping every version of the text next to each other.

the Language is already lost, and sooner rather than later it becomes unreadable, adapted versions of the text are needed to preserve great works, it doesnt deminish them.

I also think translating from british to american is a good idea as well.
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Old 01-26-2009, 09:03 PM   #15
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Quote:
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there is the problem, in this its closer to Were no?

its a word that doesnt exist, and yet has multiple meanings. I used it as an example because im reading the Barsoom Series, and every time ere is used, It can be exchanged for Before. In every instance.
No, the word "ere" does exist, and it does have multiple nuances in its meaning, although they all deal with a passage of time.

It can mean "before", it can also mean "rather than", it can also mean "unless". It's a very context specific sort of word.

Which would make writing a macro to change it just a bit difficult, because the macro would need to be able to understand the proper context in order to make the proper translation.

Intercourse is another good example. It can mean something as simple as speaking to someone. That is a type of "intercourse." Any type of interaction between people could be properly defined as "intercourse." The only reason the word has been knocked off its track (so to speak) is because it has been so firmly associated with "sexual intercourse."

I remember back in high school, I had to read and report on Lazarillo de Tormes. That would be in the Old Spanish not Modern Spanish. We also read Chaucer in Old English, and had to memorize the Canterbury Tales (all of it, mind you) in the original OE.

I'll take my reading materials untranslated, thanks all the same. Now, footnotes can be very helpful, because other than a smattering, some of my language skills really suck (or perhaps they blow .... again it's all in the context).
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