Re: CHAT smite (was: Performative verbs)
| From: | David Peterson <thatbluecat@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, September 1, 2004, 19:40 |
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Ray wrote:
<<But this side of the Pond, "smote" is only the preterite; the past
participle here is "smitten" and is not particularly rare.>>
In one of the classes I TA'd for a list of the rarest irregular verbs in
English. I can't remember a lot of them, and when I find the handout,
I'll post some, but one I *do* remember is "beshit" (whose past tense
is formed with an "a"). Certainly that one won't be in the Bible and is
probably *much* rarer than "to smite", which is now, I'd argue, quite
frequently used for its humor value (i.e., it's archaic, and therefore
funny).
-David
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