Courtesies, Then And Now Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

Five hundred years ere in free-spelling times,
You may be in a ‘pinck of curtesie’1,
Like a minstrel ‘pauz for a courtezy’2,
Servile, bend knees to show a ‘curtesy’3,
Deeply bow else as your bounden curtsy;
Today they old-fashioned are, nigh like rhymes,
Time was it— a free-flowing free-spell,
Today scarce if values old still sell.
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1. Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet (1592)
2. Unknown author, Shakespeare’s contemporary in 1575
3. Yet another spelling during Elizabethan times
Today, spellings are specific. There is no room for a leeway as was
in older times. Also, we use courtesy for general politeness, and
curtsy for specific. So much precision as is in mechanical tools,
and yet, courtesies are old fashioned and rudeness prevails more
than ever!
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- Ways of words | 05.05.14 |