Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/404

 Thrust,      thrust,                 thrusting,    thrust. Tread,       trod,                   treading,     trodden or trod. Wear,        wore,                   wearing,      worn. Win,         won,                    winning,      won. Write,       wrote,                  writing,      written.[290]

REDUNDANT VERBS.

A redundant verb is a verb that forms the preterit or the perfect participle in two or more ways, and so as to be both regular and irregular; as, thrive, thrived or throve, thriving, thrived or thriven. Of this class of verbs, there are about ninety-five, beside sundry derivatives and compounds.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Those irregular verbs which have more than one form for the preterit or for the perfect participle, are in some sense redundant; but, as there is no occasion to make a distinct class of such as have double forms that are never regular, these redundancies are either included in the preceding list of the simple irregular verbs, or omitted as being improper to be now recognized for good English. Several examples of the latter kind, including both innovations and archaisms, will appear among the improprieties for correction, at the end of this chapter. A few old preterits or participles may perhaps be accounted good English in the solemn style, which are not so in the familiar: as, "And none spake a word unto him."--Job, ii, 13. "When I brake the five loaves."--Mark, viii, 19. "And he drave them from the judgement-seat."--Acts, xviii, 16. "Serve me till I have eaten and drunken."--Luke, xvii, 8. "It was not possible that he should be holden of it."--Acts, ii, 24. "Thou castedst them down into destruction."--Psal., lxxiii, 18. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity."--Ib., li, 5. "A meat-offering baken in the oven."--Leviticus, ii, 4.

"With casted slough, and fresh celerity."--SHAK., Henry V.

"Thy dreadful vow, loaden with death."--ADDISON: ''in Joh. Dict.''

OBS. 2.--The verb bet is given in Worcester's Dictionary, as being always regular: "BET, v. a. [i. BETTED; pp. BETTING, BETTED.] To wager; to lay a wager or bet. SHAK."--Octavo Dict. In Ainsworth's Grammar, it is given as being always irregular: "Present, Bet; Imperfect, Bet; Participle, Bet."--Page 36. On the authority of these, and of some others cited in OBS. 6th below, I have put it with the redundant verbs. The verb prove is redundant, if proven, which is noticed by Webster, Bolles, and Worcester, is an admissible word. "The participle proven is used in Scotland and in some parts of the United States, and sometimes, though rarely, in England.--'There is a mighty difference between not proven and disproven.' DR. TH. CHALMERS. 'Not proven.' QU. REV."--Worcester's Universal and Critical Dict. The verbs bless and dress are to be considered redundant, according to the authority of Worcester, Webster, Bolles, and others. Cobbett will have the verbs, cast, chide, cling, draw, grow, shred, sling, slink, spring, sting, stride, swim, swing, and thrust, to be always regular; but I find no sufficient authority for allowing to any of them a regular form; and therefore leave them, where they always have been, in the list of simple irregulars. These fourteen verbs are a part of the long list of seventy which this author says, "are, by some persons, erroneously deemed irregular." Of the following nine only, is his assertion true; namely, dip, help, load, overflow, slip, snow, stamp, strip, whip. These nine ought always to be formed regularly; for all their irregularities may well be reckoned obsolete. After these deductions from this most erroneous catalogue, there remain forty-five other very common verbs, to be disposed of contrary to this author's instructions. All but two of these I shall place in the list of redundant verbs; though for the use of throwed I find no written authority but his and William B. Fowle's. The two which I do not consider redundant are spit and strew, of which it may be proper to take more particular notice.

OBS. 3.--Spit, to stab, or to put upon a spit, is regular; as, "I spitted frogs, I crushed a heap of emmets."--''Dryden. Spit'', to throw out saliva, is irregular, and most properly formed thus: spit, spit, spitting, spit. "Spat is obsolete."--Webster's Dict. It is used in the Bible; as, "He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle."--John, ix, 6. L. Murray gives this verb thus: "Pres. Spit; Imp. spit, spat; Perf. Part. spit, spitten." NOTE: "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.