We clearly just have a difference in terminology here. When the earlier poster used the expression "old English" he didn't mean the language called "Old English", but rather, "old-fashioned modern English".
For the earlier poster's benefit, the English language is conventionally divided into three broad time periods:
Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) was spoken in England and Southern Scotland from about 500 AD to somewhere after the Norman invasion - the mid 12th century is often quoted as the cut-off point. It's a highly-inflected Germanic language, and is virtually incomprehensible to a modern English speaker. This is Old English, from a poem called "The Death of Alfred":
Quote:
Her com ælfred, se unsceððiga æþeling, æþelrædes
sunu cinges, hider inn and wolde to his meder, þe on Win-
cestre sæt, ac hit him ne geþafode Godwine eorl, ne ec oþre
men þe mycel mihton wealdan, forðan hit hleoðrode þa
swiðe toward Haraldes, þeh hit unriht wære.
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The letter "þ" is called a "thorn", and has sound of "th" as in the word "this".
Middle English refers to a great variety of dialects spoken throughout England between the 11th century and about 1470, when the language was standardised during the reign of King Henry V, due to his desire that the government should have a clear and unambiguous form for use in official documents. Chaucer is probably the best-known example one finds today of Middle English:
Quote:
Whan that Aueryłł wt his shoures soote,
The droghte of Marcħ, hath perced to the roote;
And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek wt his sweete breeth,
Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth;
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne,
Hath in the Ram, his half cours yronne;
And smale foweles, maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open iye;
So priketh hem nature, in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrymages;
...
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Between about 1470 and 1550 came what's called the "Great Vowel Shift", a radical change in the sound of English vowels whose cause is still a bit of a mystery to linguists. From about 1550 onwards, English has been called
Modern English, since its grammar and pronunciation have stayed pretty much the same. ie Shakespeare wrote in modern English!