Times Have Changed or A Very Short Short Story

This is a little story I had to write in one of my classes today. A group of people had to simulate a lesson in an 8th grade and they let us write stories in groups. My group knew that I write sometimes so they let me mainly do it on my own (neither of us complained ;) ) Afterwards every group had to read their story out loud and the class had to vote for the best one. Guess what^^
We won!

Here are the rules that were given:

1. It had to be a Christmas story
2. We only had 15 minutes time
3. We had to include the following words:

macaroni and cheese, alarm clock, spare tyre, balcony, chandelier, space shuttle, ppt presentation, toilet paper, plug, chalk.

Times have changed:

Times have changed.

Even for Santa.

Children have changed too. 

They don't want apples and nuts anymore, they want IPods. And they do not send wish lists anymore, no, they send ppt presentations. If it were only IPods, fine. But no, they want everything and so Santa  had to send poor old Rudolph into retirement and get a space shuttle instead.  He used to have a truck, like the one in the commercials but who can afford all these spare tyres? Santa even had to switch to cheaper toilet paper, the presents are just too expensive. 

And everything takes so much more time than back in the old days! Therefore, Santa got himself an alarm clock a while ago, a new fancy one without a plug. But of course, he still has the big old chandelier in his bedroom. He is a traditionalist after all. Really, he'd rather be sitting on his chalk painted balcony reading Jane Austen.

Don't get me wrong, he loves the kids. They leave the nicest cookies, even though he prefers macaroni and cheese because yes, indeed, times have changed.

Even for Santa.

Let me know how you liked it!

Have a great day,
The Countess

English Nerd Facts

I wanted to share some absolutely irrelevant facts about English with you:

• The vanishing of old words in a language is called 'Obsolescence'.
• BBC-English is not the same as RP-English (also known as Queen's English) anymore. The BBC actually does allow very mild forms of regional accents while Received Pronounciation is accent free.
• In Early Modern English various verbs could be used for the perfective aspect, today we can only use 'have' as in 'I have arrived'. An example for the use in early Modern English would be 'Though art come' or 'I am arrived'.
• V and u used to be pronounced the other way round. Example: loue=love, neuer=never, vnderstand=understand
  
  
  These are things that absolutely nobody needs to know but I still like those little facts alot!
  
  
  Have a great day,
  The Countess

English Nerd Facts: Knicht

I am not only a history student, I also study English. It isn't my native language but I still learned quite a few cool things, especially in my Old English and Early Modern English classes. So today I have a little fun fact for you:

Did you know the Old English word "knicht" existed in Old German as well? It both meant "horse rider". That itself would not be very interesting, I admit. BUT:

As time went one the two languages developed and "knicht" became "knight" in English and "Knecht" in German. "Knecht" means "farm labourer" in English. So basically, the term has gone up in hirarchy in the English language while it has gone down in German. This difference in meaning can be found in nearly every single word that the two languages had in common and that changed meaning during the time. 

Have a great day,

The Countess