Welcome to the History of English podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is episode 189, stressed out.

This time, as we work our way through the story of English, we're going to complete our

look at the decade of the 1630s.

We're going to look at increased tension and conflict in England as the country inches

closer to civil war.

We'll also look at the creation of several new colonies in North America as English speakers

continue to expand along the eastern seaboard.

And throughout this episode, we're going to examine how the English language has been shaped

and defined by stress.

It's a topic that we've touched on before, but this time we'll take a deeper dive and look

at how stress patterns have

changed over time, and also how those patterns produced a new vowel sound, which has become

the most common vowel sound in English. But before we begin, let me remind you that the website

for the podcast is History of Englishpodcast.com. And you can sign up to support the

podcast and get bonus episodes at patreon.com slash history of English. Now this time we're going to

wrap up our look at the 1630s. And let's begin in the year 1633 with the publication of yet another book on spelling reform.

This particular book was called English grammar, and it was written by a beekeeper named Charles Butler.

And yes, I said he was a beekeeper.

In fact, he's sometimes called the father of English beekeeping. A few years earlier,

he had written a book called The Feminine Monarchy, which was the first full-length book about

beekeeping composed in English, and it continued to be a popular guide for beekeepers well into

...