252
The Sources of Standard English.
be seen by the following Table. I take from each author a passage (in his usual style) containing fifty substantives, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs; and this is the proportion in which the words are employed:
| English Words that are now Obsolete | Romance Words | |
| Old English Poetry, before 1066 | 25 | — |
| Old English Prose, before 1066 | 12 | — |
| Orrmin and Layamon, about 1200 | 10 | — |
| Ancren Riwle, about 1220 | 9 | — |
| Genesis and Exodus, Bestiary, about 1230 | 8 | — |
| Owl and Nightingale, about 1240 | 7 | — |
| Northern Psalter, about 1250 | 6 | — |
| Proverbs of Hending, about 1260 | 5 | — |
| Love song (page 156), about 1270 | 4 | 1 |
| Havelok, Harrowing Hell, about 1280 | 4 | 2 |
| Robert of Gloucester, about 1300 | 3 | 4 |
| Robert Manning, in 1303 | 2 | 6 |
| Shoreham, about 1320 | 3 | 3 |
| Auchinleck Romances, about 1330 | 3 | 4 |
| Hampole, about 1340 | 3 | 5 |
| Minot, about 1350 | 3 | 6 |
| Langland, in 1362 | 2 | 7 |
| Chaucer (Pardoner's Tale), in 1390 | 2 | 8 |
| Pecock in 1450 | 1 | 10 |
| Tyndale, in 1530 | — | 12 |
| Addison, in 1710 | — | 17 |
| Macaulay, in 1850 | — | 25 |
| Gibbon (sometimes) | — | 44 |
| Morris (sometimes)[1] | — | 3 |
- ↑ I give specimens of the two last in my Seventh Chapter. They seem to be writing in two languages that have little in common.
