Lingusitics

[porphyry]

From an article in  Scientific American :


Researchers scoured grammatical texts dating back to the days of Old English, cataloguing all the irregular verbs they came across. Among them: the still irregular "sing" / "sang," "go" / "went" as well as the since-regularized "smite" which once was "smote" in Old English but since has become "smited," and "slink," which is now "slinked" but 1,200 years ago was "slunk." They located 177 verbs that were irregular in Old English and 145 that were still irregular in Middle English; today, only 98 of the 177 verbs have not been "regularized.'"


Does anyone say 'smited' or 'slinked'?

Comments

[lordtangent.livejournal.com]

This is a little bizarre. "Smite" is an archaic and vaguely biblical word, but one that I think most people recognize. Anyone confident enough to use in their daily speech would definitely remember its irregular past tense. That's my intuition anyway -- a Google search reveals 122,000 hits for "smited", verses "195,000" hits for "smote." A rather uncommon word in either form, but a respectable ratio for "smited" at any rate. Perhaps my intuition is off.

Incidentally, it's 103,000 for "slinked" versus 296,000 for "slunk." I would never say "slinked" although I might be torn between "slunk" and "slank." "Slank" presents itself by analogy to the more common verb "sink/sank/sunk," but in this I'm being led astray. ("Slank" has 295,000 hits on Google, but many of these seem to be references to an Indonesian rock band of that name.)

There might be something to these researchers and their theories, though. I'm curious as to why English has lost so many more of these sorts of inflections than have German or Icelandic. Perhaps it has something to do with the creolizing effects of the Norman Conquest.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Not at all.

Its to do with the Vikings and Danes. In individual communities in which people would be speaking Old English, Old Norse, and old (I suppose) Danish, (Perhaps even husband and wife), most of the roots would be same, but the endings (i.e, the elements representing grammar, so also irregularities) would be differnt. The solution was to create a pidgin that used only the roots and no enidngs: Middle English.

Evidently Tom Shippey worked most of this out, and although he used to hold Tolkien's old Chair at Oxford he accepted a better offer to take an academic chair here in St. Louis.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

I must be old-fashioned, because I still say "smote" and "slunk."

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

You know I say "smote"--as when I inform you and your heathen ways invite St. Paul to smite you: "You will be smote!"

By the way, would "smite" be related in any way to the (and I don't know why but I always think of this as being a 19th century word, never used anymore) word "smitten" as in "I think the lad is smitten with you, Elizabeth."

Unfortunately, Shippey and I never discussed linguistics.

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

Yes, smitten is a ppl. of smite; still in quite common use here, 'he was very smitten with her', and in fact not self-consciously archaic in the same way as smite or smote. I've never come across 'smited', sounds horrible.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Oddly she knew both expressions (the litteral and metaphorical meaning) but had always thought they were homynymns, as if there were a seperate word meaning 'to feel isntant overwheling desire.'

Well, she has never taken philology seriously.

[lordtangent.livejournal.com]

Okay, so blame it all on the Northumbrians. It's all their fault.

That's real nice. As if they haven't suffered enough.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for Tonto, but--films aside--Tarzan and Frankenstein's creation both quickly became very well read and well spoken individuals.

I would imagine affecting archaic (= your "correct" I supose) speech habits would mark a marginal community like--I don't know?--Goths.

Other people talk like what they read ("Goths" so far as I can tell are no more well read in Gothic, Victorain, or Romantic literature than were, for instance, Lomabrds or Avars).

I myself was recently denounced for using "big words and fancy concepts" in a discussion elsewhere concerning literay cirticism among people who were not trained in literary criticism. For the life of me, looking over the posts in question, I could not tell what they meant.

slunk

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I've been using the word 'slunk' for years, particularly when describing the guilty behaviour of an extremely naughty otter hound we used to own.

Re: slunk

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Off-topic, but what is an otter hound? Never heard of the breed.

By the way, your pictures from Greece are lovely. I've developed quite a crush on your lovely wife, you know. ;)

Re: slunk

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Otterhounds are an ancient breed, originally used to hunt otters (which is now illegal in the UK). Becoming extinct now because they are rather difficult to control. Extremely amusing however. We really do miss ours :(

I wrote a post about them earlier this year, with a picture: http://benicek.livejournal.com/55202.html

I was going to post a Greek photo of Eva posing with a live starfish on her bare tummy, but decided it was too erotic ;-)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

For whom? Her or the Starfish?

Re: slunk

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Very nice-looking dog; we have the same hard-to-control problems with pit bulls here in the States.

That picture of your wife would have driven me mad, surely. :)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

For me, silly. One lucky starfish.

Re: slunk

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't mean hard-to-control like pit bulls. Otterhounds don't eat babies. The most fierce ours got was when she would try to torture a dog biscuit.