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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dive is a weak verb that recently people have been treating like a strong oneAHD4 has some interesting things to say about dive, pointing out that it is a conflation of two OE verbs, dyfan and dufan: http://www.bartleby.com/61/11/D0301100.htmlThey fail to mention, however, that, while dyfan was weak, dufan was strong. Its ablaut series was u, ea, u, o. Maybe, if I dig around long enough, I'll come up with a MnE verb that comes out of this ablaut series.
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
AHD4 has some interesting things to say about dive... Maybe, if I dig around long enough, I'll come up with a MnE verb that comes out of this ablaut series.Maybe if you dive around long enough, you will amuse me as much as you enlighten me, dear Faldage. That would be good, too. 
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Joined: Jan 2004
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veteran
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veteran
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They fail to mention, however, that, while dyfan was weak, dufan was strong.
Yes, indeed, but I think the strong dufan fell out of use first, unless of course some dialect preserved dove. Sleuth on! The Wortschatz is your huitre.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
My cat's breath smells like catfood... Actually, very interesting thread!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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recently people have been treating like a strong one: dive ~ dived vs dive ~ dove. Wear and spit also were originally weak verbs, but are now strong. Don't tell me that people are now saying...spitted. Please.
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Joined: Jan 2004
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
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Don't tell me that people are now saying...spitted. Please.
No, what I was saying is that the past tense of spit used to be closer to spitted (weak) than to spat (strong).
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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Posts: 81
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 81 |
I always thought "wrought" was from "work", but actually "wreak" looks good too, so I looked it up. "Wreak" and "wreck" are from one root, a rather violent one meaning driving or urging, and related to the Latin "urg-". This isn't the same as the unviolent "work", or if it is it's back in prehistory.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Gurunet says wrought comes from: [Middle English wroght, from Old English geworht, past participle of wyrcan, to work.]
Is work a weak verb? I have heard people speak of working metal, for ex., or that metal was worked. If I did some work, I worked. To me, wrought has more implication that something was created. Odd--does anyone actually say, today, that they (for ex.) wrought iron? I can only imagine someone saying they made wrought iron (wrought being an adjective here), or worked with wrought iron. Anything except that they wrought iron.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, work (±wyrcan) was weak in OE.
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