Thomas Gray, 1750:
Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard":
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor...
The first four or so times I read:
Robert C. Allen: The year 1762 witnessed two momentous changes in cropping [in Spelsbury in Oxfordshire]. First, turnip cultivation was shifted from the sainfoin [grass] enclosure to the open fields themselves.... Secondly, clover was introduced...
the word "momentous" did not strike me as at all out of place or inappropriate or funny...
Should I be alarmed? Or distressed? Or just accept that the particular road I have walked has made me a somewhat strange person?

.......... 
