Unto

While in my History of the English Language course this past week, I recieved a bit of a shock. I was not shocked by some of the new words that have slipped into common speech (I already knew the language was going to the dogs). I was not shocked by most of the words that have slipped out of common speech (I knew alot of words that I like tend to be rather archaic). However, I say "most" since I was thrown off guard by the casual way that the class passed off the word 'unto'.

Oh, nobody uses that word anymore. Try to think of a sentence that you would say normally that has 'unto' in it.

And that was it. I'm puzzled. To me 'unto' is among the building blocks of our language; it serves its purpose quite well as a preposition and conjunction. Along with this basic function it indicates limits, spatial relationships, motion towards a goal, and the list goes on.

I suppose that "to" is the common substitution but I think a little bit is lost by plunking all these nuances into that one word.

I understand that the language is changing. I understand that without such change the language would soon dry up and eventually die but I cannot help feeling a slight twinge of regret that such a friend is now considered 'out of use' & to be footnoted in modern editions.