Hallo Ed!

 EV> I thought I could read English but can't make any sense of those
 EV> words.

Things are bad everywhere, said the man who heard wailing in hell.

 EV> Looking at them made me think of a Tenth Grade High School
 EV> English Teacher telling his class about Chaucer's writings.

Chaucer wrote in middle English which is at least a couple centuries after the
proverb in question was written (old English).  We have to wait until
Shakespeare before we see anything resembling what we call English.

 EV> I couldn't make any sense of what he was trying to teach us back
 EV> then.

Like everything, practice makes perfect.  I saw a linguist on a documentary who
 claimed if you read Chaucer aloud it starts making more sense.  I claim that
it is all Greek to me.

Het leven is goed,
Maurice

... Huil niet om mij, ik heb vi.
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