The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

"Spitten is nearly obsolete."—Octavo Gram., p. 106. Sanborn has it thus: "Pres. Spit; Imp. spit; Pres. Part. spitting; Perf. Part. spit, spat."—Analytical Gram., p. 48. Cobbett, at first, taking it in the form, "to spit, I spat, spitten," placed it among the seventy which he so erroneously thought should be made regular; afterwards he left it only in his list of irregulars, thus: "to spit, I spit, spitten."—Cobbett's E. Gram., of 1832, p. 54. Churchill, in 1823, preferring the older forms, gave it thus: "Spit, spat or spit, spitten or spit."—New Gram., p. 111. NOTE:—"Johnson gives spat as the preterimperfect, and spit or spitted as the participle of this verb, when it means to pierce through with a pointed instrument: but in this sense, I believe, it is always regular; while, on the other hand, the regular form is now never used, when it signifies to eject from the mouth; though we find in Luke, xviii, 32, 'He shall be spitted on.'"—Churchill's New Gram., p. 264. This text ought to have been, "He shall be spit upon."

OBS. 4.—To strew is in fact nothing else than an other mode of spelling the verb to strow; as shew is an obsolete form for show; but if we pronounce the two forms differently, we make them different words. Walker, and some others, pronounce them alike, stro; Sheridan, Jones, Jameson, and Webster, distinguish them in utterance, stroo and stro. This is convenient for the sake of rhyme, and perhaps therefore preferable. But strew, I incline to think, is properly a regular verb only, though Wells and Worcester give it otherwise: if strewn has ever been proper, it seems now to be obsolete. EXAMPLES: "Others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way."—Matt., xxi, 8. "Gathering where thou hast not strewed."—Matt., xxv, 24.

   "Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
    The place of fame and elegy supply;
    And many a holy text around she strews,
    That teach the rustic moralist to die."—Gray.

OBS. 5.—The list which I give below, prepared with great care, exhibits the redundant verbs, as they are now generally used, or as they may be used without grammatical impropriety.[291] Those forms which are supposed to be preferable, and best supported by authorities, are placed first. No words are inserted here, but such as some modern authors countenance. L. Murray recognizes bereaved, catched, dealed, digged, dwelled, hanged, knitted, shined, spilled; and, in his early editions, he approved of bended, builded, creeped, weaved, worked, wringed. His two larger books now tell us, "The Compiler has not inserted such verbs as learnt, spelt, spilt, &c. which are improperly terminated by t, instead of ed."—Octavo Gram., p. 107; Duodecimo, p. 97. But if he did not, in all his grammars, insert, "Spill, spilt, R. spilt, R.," (pp. 106, 96,) preferring the irregular form to the regular, somebody else has done it for him. And, what is remarkable, many of his amenders, as if misled by some evil genius, have contradicted themselves in precisely the same way! Ingersoll, Fisk, Merchant, and Hart, republish exactly the foregoing words, and severally become "The Compiler" of the same erroneous catalogue! Kirkham prefers spilt to spilled, and then declares the word to be "improperly terminated by t instead of ed."—Gram., p. 151. Greenleaf, who condemns learnt and spelt, thinks dwelt and spilt are "the only established forms;" yet he will have dwell and spill to be "regular" verbs, as well as "irregular!"—Gram. Simp., p. 29. Webber prefers spilled to spilt; but Picket admits only the latter. Cobbett and Sanborn prefer bereaved, builded, dealed, digged, dreamed, hanged, and knitted, to bereft, built, dealt, dug, dreamt, hung, and knit. The former prefers creeped to crept, and freezed to froze; the latter, slitted to slit, wringed to wrung; and both consider, "I bended," "I bursted" and "I blowed," to be good modern English. W. Allen acknowledges freezed and slided; and, like Webster, prefers hove to hoven: but the latter justly prefers heaved to both. EXAMP.: "The supple kinsman slided to the helm."—New Timon. "The rogues slided me into the river."—Shak. "And the sand slided from beneath my feet."— DR. JOHNSON: in Murray's Sequel, p. 179. "Wherewith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone."—Milton's Comus, l. 449. "It freezed hard last night. Now, what was it that freezed so hard?"—Emmons's Gram., p. 25. "Far hence lies, ever freez'd, the northern main."—Savage's Wanderer, l. 57. "Has he not taught, beseeched, and shed abroad the Spirit unconfined?"—Pollok's Course of Time, B. x, l. 275.

OBS. 6.—D. Blair supposes catched to be an "erroneous" word and unauthorized: "I catch'd it," for "I caught it," he sets down for a "vulgarism."—E. Gram., p. 111. But catched is used by some of the most celebrated authors. Dearborn prefers the regular form of creep: "creep, creeped or crept, creeped or crept."—Columbian Gram., p. 38. I adopt no man's opinions implicitly; copy nothing without examination; but, to prove all my decisions to be right, would be an endless task. I shall do as much as ought to be expected, toward showing that they are so. It is to be remembered, that the poets, as well as the vulgar, use some forms which a gentleman would be likely to avoid, unless he meant to quote or imitate; as,

   "So clomb the first grand thief into God's fold;
    So since into his church lewd hirelings climb."
        —Milton, P. L., B. iv, l. 192.

   "He shore his sheep, and, having packed the wool,
    Sent them unguarded to the hill of wolves."
        —Pollok, C. of T., B. vi, l. 306.

                      ———"The King of heav'n
    Bar'd his red arm, and launching from the sky
    His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,
    Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook."
        —Dryden.

OBS. 7.—The following are examples in proof of some of the forms acknowledged below: "Where etiquette and precedence abided far away."—Paulding's Westward-Ho! p. 6. "But there were no secrets where Mrs. Judith Paddock abided."—Ib., p. 8. "They abided by the forms of government established by the charters."—John Quincy Adams, Oration, 1831. "I have abode consequences often enough in the course of my life."—Id., Speech, 1839. "Present, bide, or abide; Past, bode, or abode."—Coar's Gram., p. 104. "I awaked up last of all."—Ecclus., xxxiii, 16. "For this are my knees bended before the God of the spirits of all flesh."—Wm. Penn. "There was never a prince bereaved of his dependencies," &c.—Bacon. "Madam, you have bereft me of all words."—Shakspeare. "Reave, reaved or reft, reaving, reaved or reft. Bereave is similar."—Ward's Practical Gram., p. 65. "And let them tell their tales of woful ages, long ago betid."—Shak. "Of every nation blent, and every age."—Pollok, C. of T., B vii, p. 153. "Rider and horse,—friend, foe,—in one red burial blent!"—Byron, Harold, C. iii, st. 28. "I builded me houses."—Ecclesiastes, ii, 4. "For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God."—Heb. iii, 4. "What thy hands builded not, thy wisdom gained."—Milton's P. L., X, 373. "Present, bet; Past, bet; Participle, bet."— Mackintosh's Gram., p. 197; Alexander's, 38. "John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much upon his head."—SHAKSPEARE: Joh. Dict, w. Bet. "He lost every earthly thing he betted."—PRIOR: ib. "A seraph kneeled."—Pollok, C. T., p. 95.

   "At first, he declared he himself would be blowed,
    Ere his conscience with such a foul crime he would load."
        —J. R. Lowell.

"They are catched without art or industry."—Robertson's Amer.,-Vol. i, p. 302. "Apt to be catched and dazzled."—Blair's Rhet., p. 26. "The lion being catched in a net."—Art of Thinking, p. 232. "In their self-will they digged down a wall."—Gen., xlix, 6. "The royal mother instantly dove to the bottom and brought up her babe unharmed."— Trumbull's America, i, 144. "The learned have diven into the secrets of nature."—CARNOT: Columbian Orator, p. 82. "They have awoke from that ignorance in which they had slept."—London Encyclopedia. "And he slept and dreamed the second time."—Gen., xli, 5. "So I awoke."—Ib., 21. "But he hanged the chief baker."—Gen., xl, 22. "Make as if you hanged yourself."—ARBUTHNOT: in Joh. Dict. "Graven by art and man's device."—Acts, xvii, 29. "Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."—Gray. "That the tooth of usury may be grinded."—Lord Bacon. "MILN-EE, The hole from which the grinded corn falls into the chest below."—Glossary of Craven, London, 1828. "UNGRUND, Not grinded."— Ibid. "And he built the inner court with three rows of hewed stone."—1 Kings, vi, 36. "A thing by which matter is hewed."—Dr. Murray's Hist. of Europ. Lang., Vol. i, p. 378. "SCAGD or SCAD meaned distinction, dividing."—Ib., i, 114. "He only meaned to acknowledge him to be an extraordinary person."—Lowth's Gram., p. 12. "The determines what particular thing is meaned."—Ib., p. 11. "If Hermia mean'd to say Lysander lied."—Shak. "As if I meaned not the first but the second creation."—Barclay's Works, iii, 289. "From some stones have rivers bursted forth."—Sale's Koran, Vol. i, p. 14.

   "So move we on; I only meant
    To show the reed on which you leant."—Scott, L. L., C. v, st. 11.

OBS. 8.—Layed, payed, and stayed, are now less common than laid, paid, and staid; but perhaps not less correct, since they are the same words in a more regular and not uncommon orthography: "Thou takest up that [which] thou layedst not down."—FRIENDS' BIBLE, SMITH'S, BRUCE'S: Luke, xix, 21. Scott's Bible, in this place, has "layest," which is wrong in tense. "Thou layedst affliction upon our loins."—FRIENDS' BIBLE: Psalms, lxvi, 11. "Thou laidest affliction upon our loins."—SCOTT'S BIBLE, and BRUCE'S. "Thou laidst affliction upon our loins."—SMITH'S BIBLE, Stereotyped by J. Howe. "Which gently lay'd my knighthood on my shoulder."—SINGER'S SHAKSPEARE: Richard II, Act i, Sc. 1. "But no regard was payed to his remonstrance."—Smollett's England, Vol. iii, p. 212. "Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit."—Haggai, i, 10. "STAY, i. STAYED or STAID; pp. STAYING, STAYED or STAID."—Worcester's Univ. and Crit. Dict. "Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed by En-rogel."—2 Sam., xvii, 17. "This day have I payed my vows."—FRIENDS' BIBLE: Prov, vii, 14. Scott's Bible has "paid." "They not only stayed for their resort, but discharged divers."—HAYWARD: in Joh. Dict. "I stayed till the latest grapes were ripe."—Waller's Dedication. "To lay is regular, and has in the past time and participle layed or laid."—Lowth's Gram., p. 54. "To the flood, that stay'd her flight."—Milton's Comus, l. 832. "All rude, all waste, and desolate is lay'd."—Rowe's Lucan, B. ix, l. 1636. "And he smote thrice, and stayed."—2 Kings, xiii, 18.

   "When Cobham, generous as the noble peer
    That wears his honours, pay'd the fatal price
    Of virtue blooming, ere the storms were laid."—Shenstone, p. 167.

OBS. 9.—By the foregoing citations, lay, pay, and stay, are clearly proved to be redundant. But, in nearly all our English grammars, lay and pay are represented as being always irregular; and stay is as often, and as improperly, supposed to be always regular. Other examples in proof of the list: "I lit my pipe with the paper."—Addison.

   "While he whom learning, habits, all prevent,
    Is largely mulct for each impediment."—Crabbe, Bor., p. 102.
    "And then the chapel—night and morn to pray,
    Or mulct and threaten'd if he kept away."—Ib., p. 162.

"A small space is formed, in which the breath is pent up."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 493. "Pen, when it means to write, is always regular. Boyle has penned in the sense of confined."—Churchill's Gram., p. 261. "So far as it was now pled."—ANDERSON: Annals of the Bible, p. 25. "Rapped with admiration."—HOOKER: Joh. Dict. "And being rapt with the love of his beauty."—Id., ib. "And rapt in secret studies."—SHAK.: ib. "I'm rapt with joy."—ADDISON: ib. "Roast with fire."—FRIENDS' BIBLE: Exod., xii, 8 and 9. "Roasted with fire."—SCOTT'S BIBLE: Exod., xii, 8 and 9. "Upon them hath the light shined."—Isaiah, ix, 2. "The earth shined with his glory."—Ezekiel, xliii, 2. "After that he had showed wonders."—Acts, vii, 36. "Those things which God before had showed."—Acts, iii, 18. "As shall be shewed in Syntax."—Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 28. "I have shown you, that the two first may be dismissed."—Cobbett's E. Gram., ¶ 10. "And in this struggle were sowed the seeds of the revolution."—Everett's Address, p. 16. "Your favour showed to the performance, has given me boldness."—Jenks's Prayers, Ded. "Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel."—Rom., xv, 20. "Art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?"—Shakspeare. "Hamstring'd behind, unhappy Gyges died."—Dryden. "In Syracusa was I born and wed."—Shakspeare. "And thou art wedded to calamity."—Id. "I saw thee first, and wedded thee."—Milton. "Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase."—Pope. "Some errors never would have thriven, had it not been for learned refutation."—Book of Thoughts, p. 34. "Under your care they have thriven."—Junius, p. 5. "Fixed by being rolled closely, compacted, knitted."—Dr. Murray's Hist., Vol. i, p. 374. "With kind converse and skill has weaved."—Prior. "Though I shall be wetted to the skin."—Sandford and Merton, p. 64. "I speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possibility."—Shakspeare. "And pure grief shore his old thread in twain."—Id. "And must I ravel out my weaved-up follies?"—Id., Rich. II.