Editing William Caxton (section)

===Caxton's "egges" anecdote===
[[File:What sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte egges or eyren?.jpg|thumb|left|The famous fragment about eggs in the original edition]]
In Caxton's prologue to the 1490 edition of his translation of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'', called by him ''Eneydos'',<ref name="British Library - Caxton's 'egges' story">{{cite web |title=Caxton's 'egges' story |url=http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126611.html |website=[[British Library]] |access-date=24 November 2018}}</ref> he refers to the problems of finding a standardised English.<ref name="Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland - Caxton's Tale of Eggs and the North Foreland, Kent">{{cite web |last1=Breeze |first1=Andrew |title=Caxton's Tale of Eggs and the North Foreland, Kent |url=http://www.snsbi.org.uk/Nomina_articles/Nomina_23_Breeze.pdf |website=[[Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland]] |access-date=24 November 2018}}</ref> Caxton recounts what took place when a boat sailing from London to [[Zeeland]] was becalmed, and landed on the Kent side of the [[Thames]].<ref name="British Library - Caxton's 'egges' story"/>

A [[Mercery|mercer]] called Sheffield was from the north of England. He went into a house and asked the "good wyf" if he could buy some "[[wikt:egg#English|egges]]". She replied that she could not speak French, which annoyed him, as he could also not speak French. A bystander suggested that Sheffield was asking for "[[wikt:ey#English|eyren]]", which the woman said she understood.<ref name="British Library - Caxton's 'egges' story"/> After recounting the interaction, Caxton wrote: "Loo what ſholde a man in thyſe dayes now wryte egges or eyren/ certaynly it is harde to playſe euery man/ by cauſe of dyuerſite ⁊ chaũge of langage" ("Lo, what should a man in these days now write: egges or eyren? Certainly it is hard to please every man because of diversity and change of language").<ref name="British Library -Caxton's Chaucer - Caxton's English">{{cite web |title=Caxton's Chaucer – Caxton's English |url=https://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/english.html |website=[[British Library]] |access-date=29 November 2018}}</ref>