do you say:

you spoilt me    or

you spoiled me?

Hi Anonymous,

spoil (v) "-ed" or "spoilt"

in the sense " excessively indulged-pampered too much" you can say either.

hope this helps

Hello Khoff

Is it archaic? OED suggests the sense is still alive, though I couldn't find so many sentences of its kind of use in Google.

• spoiled me/you/him/her/it/us/them 180+5+576+22+58+104+164=987
• spoilt me/you/him/her/it/us/them 0+0+8+0+20+0+0+0=28

Hello Khoff

I should admit the usage of "spoil someone of something" is archaic. Here are some sentences I extracted from Google. All of them are in classic documents like the Bible or Greek myths.

• O King, we have been in the country of the infidels and they spoiled us of nothing.
• Lycurgus then spoiled him of the armor which Mars had given him.
• Ye Quraysh, the lion of Islam, hath leapt upon the lion of Persia, and spoiled him of his prey.
• History attests that he laid a heavy hand upon them, spoiling them of the few earthly goods left them.
• I was suddenly environed with a company of thieves, who robbed and spoiled me of such things.
• He hath spoiled me of mine honor, and taken the crown away from my head.
• These robbers never come but to spoil you of some good, whatever disguise they may appear in.
• Beware lest any man spoil you. Spoil in this instance means to rob or plunder you.
• The city was spoiled of all that was of value, and then given up to the flames.
• They were spoiled of all their substance and deprived of the necessities of life.

A problem in my English learning is I couldn't identify what word is in contemporary use and what not.

By the way what about:

Learnt - learned??

Are both of the words correct? I use 'learnt' but sometimes 'learned' not sure which one is better

BUT SUDDENLY I remember 'learned' is an American word! No wonder i keep using 'learnt' as I'm speaking British English So am I correct or not? I can easily get confused It makes me sad I wanna cry hehehehe