h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And let's not forget combed/kempt.

You have spoiled your children; they are now spoilt brats.
There seems to be a tendency to go for the verb as adjective, ie the -ed ending prevails. The -t endings are less and less common

Actually, the 't' endings were never really 'common'. In fact they were (and still are) only used by the most discerning writers and readers, in an adjectival way. The common folk have always wrongly used the passed tense.
past care
jwf

Hi all

on the -ed vs -t past forms, my initial reaction was that 'burned' was the past form and that 'burnt' was the past participle. However, David Crystal has something rather different to say on the subject:

Firstly, that the -ed form *tends* to be more common in US usage than Brit English (although he admits that frequency varies greatly).

Secondly, and perhaps more interestingly, he suggests that the -ed form emphasises the duration of an action. He actually takes the example of 'burn'! Thus, "The fire burned brightly." vs "I burnt my hand on the stove."

I tend to go for this, and it also makes sense that users would take the 'short' form as the adjective. At least, it does to me!

From a linguistic point of view, it seems to be connected with the sounding of the 'd' sound at the end. When unsounded the same articulation produces a 't'. I don't get it though! We don't feel the need to say 'firt' (I know it looks a bit silly ) instead of 'fired' or 'staint' for 'stained'. Why should this happen with some verbs and not others?

I was just about to leave it at that when I thought of the phrase 'hard-earned cash' compared to 'I think you've earnt it"! I'm not sure about the second bit (earnt it), though. What forms would other people use here? Are there other contradictory examples?

Sometimes, of course, these things are dictated by regional variation, contemporary convention or just personal choice.

Spiff

smelt, smelled - I use both
spelt - I use this
spelled - I accept this as valid
earnt - I never say this
spended - this is never acceptable

Now I have to get a group of students listening to what I DO say. I think I use only the -t form, especially with smelt, ( I smelt a rat, IT smelt awful) For me, 'learn' seems to go the same (I learnt this a long time ago, it's a learnt response) but now that I've written them down they look very odd

I thought you would smelt ore but might have smelled a rat

hi

Well, the only thing that seems clear here is that verbs ending in a -d in the present can never form a past tense in -t.

Anyone found the exception?

Spiff

hi

Well, the only thing that seems clear here is that verbs ending in a -d in the present can never form a past tense in -ed.

Anyone found the exception?

Spiff

Er, yeah, I really meant the second version!

Spiff

end --> ended
wend --> wended (went means something else)
blend --> blended
lend --> lended
mend --> mended

bend --> bent
spend --> spent
send --> sent

But the Christmas Carol "It came upon a midnight clear" describes angels with bended wings

To those who asked (askt?),

Didn't realise I was being brave asking all those questions till you lot started saying how nice it was to have re-think about all the basic stuff! Don't you just hate it when you embarrass yourself unintentionally?

And now the killer, I am a native speaker, I am English, I went to a 'proper' Grammar School (as in been there since the 14th Century, same one Isaac Newton went to, no less, had to pass the 11 Plus to get there), I have a GCSE Grade A English Language and a GCSE Grade C English Lit.

I do, however, have an excuse - I'm a computer programmer! My education followed the science and logical pursuits rather than the humanities and arts. You don't learn what you are not interested in at the time.

I guess the interest in language has come about through an interest in history. Also, I found increasingly often that I would write something and then feel 'that's not right' and re-write it. I finally decided I should find out WHY it didn't sound right when others in the office started using me to proof read complex of awkward sentences. I thought now was the time to learn, and here I am!

Yes I'm a beginner and eternally grateful for the help and tolerance you people have shown.

So, thanks, and count me as a convert!

But 'he lent it to me' sounds more correct than 'he lended it to me'

today k

Oh nuts. Should have read the correction too.

I am hoping my bloke will go down on bended knee sometime soon...

today k

... it didn't take you long to find some!

Hmm. English doesn't like rules much, does it. Variety is the spice of grammar in Albion, obviously!

I don't like 'lended' though. Urgh!

Could 'wended' be connected with our irregular past form of 'to go' by any chance?



Spiff

Regarding bent/bended, though the latter form does sound a little archaic, there also seems (to me at least) to be the feeling that bended, as in 'He went down on bended knee', carries a subtle hint that the state may have been less permanent than 'bent'.

However, that doesn't carry over in quite the same sense to the case of burnt/burned, (possibly since it's hard for anything to become un-burnt, except through biological healing).
Hearing someone talking about a burnt piece of meat would cause me to visualise just the state of the meat, whereas 'burned' would generate some imagination of the burning process itself, as well as the end result.
Alternatively, given the phrase 'He was burned/burnt at the stake', the resulting imagery would be similar in both cases.

I'm also a programmer, with the quite common tendency towards strongly visual/spatial thinking, so I may not pick up on every subtle grammatical error. Some things sound right to me, some don't, and in the case of a very few, I may not sure if they're strictly correct, but I suppose I do place most emphasis on whether I 'feel' the presence of inconsistencies or ambiguities.

That said, I *am* interested in language, but probably more in the precise (if sometimes highly abstract) meanings of words, subtle variations of meaning, and multiple interpretations (particularly the opportunities for humour).

I see the objection to spended for spent but would still have to accept it as a verb. (The money is spent for he hath spended it.)

On the other hand surely, 'suspended' could never be suspent.
Although it gets more complex if we advance to suspension.
There musta been a missing link there once upon a time.

content, contented and in contention,
jwf

>Could 'wended' be connected with our irregular past form of 'to go' by any chance?<

Yes of course 'went' and 'wended' are examples of the same.
But just like the bent kneed angels on bended knee in the Christmas carol, the differences, originally poetic for purposes of scantion, have been tainted by the usage.

Thus, wended, oft used in poetry for the same reasons of rhythm and meter, has by now been allocated only to romantic, happy and poetic references. Johnny went to war, but wended his way back home.

peace
jwf (by usage taint)

Hi jwf

I'm happy to accept people saying pretty much anything, up to a point (I think 'expension' is out, even if there is no prob with 'expansion' - equally, I personally won't be using 'expant' as a past form of 'expand', but if people want to...)

I'm with you on the variation in the different forms derived from 'spend' (suspension etc.), although I have never heard 'spended' as far as I can recall ('splendid', yes, 'spended' no ).

Is it possible that there is a tendency to allow 'short' words to break rules that are more usually imposed on 'longer' (and perhaps particularly Latin derived words with prefixes) words? It certainly seems to be the case that Latin derived words will tend to be more regular than Anglo-saxon derivatives.

I think anomalies of the 'expense' - 'expansion' type often arise as a result of a form being more or less arbitrarily preferred over others and fixed as the 'correct' form at some stage by some linguistic authority (Johnson, for example).

The connection between the 'word' and the 'object' or 'meant thing' is generally regarded in linguistics to be arbitrary. This was a theory of Saussure (in the early 20th C), who devised the terms 'signifiant' and 'signifié' for purposes of defining this relationship. These terms mean 'signifier' and 'signified' respectively.

This may sound a bit technical but it seems perfectly simple when you look at a concrete example.

Dog - The word dog, D-O-G, is the signifiant. The 'real-life' animal with four legs that makes a barking noise is the 'signifié'.

In French, the 'signifiant' is different (ie 'chien') but the 'signifié' remains the same.

We can conclude from the fact that the English word for this animal bears no resemblance to the French word equivalent that there is no intrinsic connection between the word 'dog' and the animal itself.

I intended to try to clarify the arbitrary nature of the relationship between words and meanings but I'm not sure whether it will be clearer from this.

I'd better stop before it starts to become *less* clear instead.

Spiff

thanks for that jwf, it had simply never occured to me that 'wend' and 'went' were related.

For all that, it is interesting to note the difference in usage.

You can't 'go' your way, as you can 'wend' your way. I had always taken this to indicate that it was closer to 'wind' (not that you can 'wind' your way either!) and that the implication was not just travelling but going a long way round or making lots of turns en route.

You have to 'go ON' your way, or better still, 'make' your way, don't you? I personally would never attempt to 'wend on' my way. That would just be silly!

Spiff