In Dialects^x, Past tenses^x

Hello anon, I'm not sure why you chose to stand on your soapbox about the declining state of English on a post that was almost two years old, but you are mistaken. Regarding dive:http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dive - usage Dive, which was originally a weak verb, developed a past...

To me, knowing the past tenses and past participles of irregular verbs is a challenge and makes English more interesting.

References

Webster's 1828 MAY, n. 1. Had sufficient strength or physical power. A sick man could not lift his hand. Isaac was old and could not see. Alexander could easily conquer the effeminate Asiatics. 2. Had adequate means or instruments. The men could defray their own expenses. The country was...

Certainly not new, many of them, and each with its own story:Thunk, as far as I know, has always been considered jocular when used by an adult; it is a child's common paradigmatic error. From the Macquarie Dictionary: thunk verb a jocular past tense or past participle of `think': I thunk and...

Hello td I'm not an expert or a student of linguistics. But we've had a few discussions about modals on this forum, and I've noticed three things: 1. Speakers of different dialects seem to respond differently to the same modal verb. 2. People's sense of 'tense' in modals seems to vary. I find...

Your toes look pretty sharp and nimble to me, Paco! I think doubt often does arise, for native speakers, when they're using this structure in written English. I've had conversations like the one above on a number of occasions, when someone has suddenly doubted their own intuition while writing a...

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/auxiliary.htm#may Unless otherwise indicated, all written material on this Web site is the property of Professor Charles Darling and the Capital Community College Foundation and is published here for free use by the college's students and staff and for the...

Sorry, this will probably be a really long post. My mission? To dispell false notions about American English First, we do NOT say "drug" as the past tense of "drag." It's dragged! There are only three kinds of Americans who would say this: Young children who have not yet mastered the grammatical...

My first language was Greek and Ukrainian, even though my background is actually Ukrainian, Polish, Scottish, and Native Canadian Cree. I travelled throughout Europe and Asia through my life, and now I am flutent in seven languages, and can get along conversationally in eight others. Of these...