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Re: THEORY: irregular conlangs

From:Matt Pearson <jmpearson@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 6, 1999, 18:25
Eric Christopherson wrote (wrought?):

>> Like "wrought", originally the past tense of "work", but now a seperate >> verb. Presumably, when the regular "worked" was used, some speakers >> retained "wrought", but since they were few, people thought it was a >> different verb. > >I thought wrought was the past tense of wreak...
I believe that "wreak" and "work" were originally different forms of the same word - perhaps the same word in different dialects of Old English? The "wreak" form survives only in "wreak havoc" and maybe one or two other fixed expressions, while the "work" form has been generalised. Matt.