"Teika employed traditional language in startling new ways, showing that the prescriptive ideal of "old diction, new treatment" [kotoba furuku, kokoro atarashi] inherited from Shunzei might accommodate innovation and experimentation as well as ensure the preservation of the language and styles of the classical past." .
The "old diction" here are phrases and words from the "Three Collections": the Kokinshū, the Gosen Wakashū, and the Shūi Wakashū, but not much older than that (for instance, the diction of the Man'yōshū was considered too old) [REF].