Lets Keep Some of the Old Verb Forms

Lets Keep Some of the Old Verb Forms Lets Keep Some of the Old Verb Forms Lets Keep Some of the Old Verb Forms By Maeve Maddox When it comes to some irregular verbs, I really hate to see the old past participle forms regularized to the dominant -ed ending. Heres an odd regularization of split: Data is splitted between the protocols HTTP and FTP. To be fair, I found this example on a site belonging to a company based in Germany. Its a logical mistake for a non-native English speaker. Split is one of those rare verbs that never changes its form: Today they split the data. Yesterday they split the data. The data is split between protocols. The data has been split. This next example is from an online chat: the Rabbi of Bardichevalways seeked to judge Jews favorably As far as I can tell, the site is based in the U.S. The person who typed this sentence is well-educated. I have no way of knowing if hes a native English speaker, but Im pretty sure that he is. It may be that seek is undergoing the same change as slay. Ive often expressed my aversion to slayed as the simple past of slay, to kill. I much prefer the forms slay, slew, (have) slain. Ill continue to use the old forms in my own writing, but I realize that many other writers are going with the -ed forms. Unlike slayed, Ive never seen seeked before. I hope this is just a personal aberration. The -ed change has already taken place with seeks cousin, beseech: to beg urgently. Both words derive from Old English secan, visit, inquire, pursue. He beseeched her to change her mind raises no hackles for me, although I might still find a use for besought in my writing. What do readers think? Should all English verbs be regularized to -ed forms? Or do you have old-fashioned favorites youd hate to see make the change? Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Beautiful and Ugly WordsThe Letter "Z" Will Be Removed from the English AlphabetEnglish Grammar 101: Prepositions