irregular past tense in "new" verbs: highlight, te
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irregular past tense in "new" verbs: highlight, te
What is the protocol? I cannot cannot cannot bring myself to say, "Okay class, I have HIGHLIT the answers for you"... but I am one who uses 'lit' as the past tense, and think 'lighted' looks/sounds wrong. And what about 'text,' as in, "I texted your cellphone"? Why do I hear the kids these days saying, "I text him yesterday; I haven't heard back"?
Has 'text' as a verb made the OED yet? What about Webster's? Is the past tense truly irregular?
Has 'text' as a verb made the OED yet? What about Webster's? Is the past tense truly irregular?
I use "highlighted" as the past tense, and looking at the dictionary, it seems that is the correct usage. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/highlight I don't even see "highlit" as a possible choice.
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But the word came first, and then the trademark, which is why it isn't protected from generic or verb use, like Google — and is thus in the dictionaries. The word was probably a noun first, which may be why it didn't conjugate like the verb light when it became a verb.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=highlight
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=highlight
Last edited by jotham on Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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You may not, some still need to, others used to.Stephen Jones wrote:From 'light', which is why the past participle it's 'sunlit' but 'highlighted'.Where did sunlit, gaslit, and lamplit come from?
Do we say 'gaslit' and 'lamplit'?
The base meaning of "light/lit"is the same in both. So, there's no reason why "highlit" should not follow suit with "sunlit", etc.From 'light', which is why the past participle it's 'sunlit' but 'highlighted'.
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There is a difference but I can''t put my finger on it.
Sunlit etc don't seem to come from productive verbs in the same way. Would you say "they didn't gaslight the town until 1860" or "Cutting down that tree will sunlight the garden"? Or "We must lamplight the hall"?
Whereas highlight/highlights/highlighting/highlighted seems more usable in any form.
What about:
Have you input the data?
Have you inputted the data?
As Stephen Jones has said, Pinker is interesting on this. This is similar to what he says in "words and rules":
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/ ... dfall.html
and this is less digestible:
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/ ... Mortal.pdf
Sunlit etc don't seem to come from productive verbs in the same way. Would you say "they didn't gaslight the town until 1860" or "Cutting down that tree will sunlight the garden"? Or "We must lamplight the hall"?
Whereas highlight/highlights/highlighting/highlighted seems more usable in any form.
What about:
Have you input the data?
Have you inputted the data?
As Stephen Jones has said, Pinker is interesting on this. This is similar to what he says in "words and rules":
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/ ... dfall.html
and this is less digestible:
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/ ... Mortal.pdf
Last edited by JuanTwoThree on Sat Jan 06, 2007 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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This is the particular quote regarding 'flied out'.
Not only is the irregular class losing members by emigration, it is not gaining new ones by immigration. When new verbs enter English via onomatopoeia (to ding, to ping), borrowings from other languages (deride and succumb from Latin), and conversions from nouns (fly out), the regular rule has first dibs on them. The language ends up with dinged, pinged, derided, succumbed, and flied out, not dang, pang, derode, succame, or flew out.
Here's the quote from Juan123's second link:
The regular past tense form is not just one of several kinds of annotations to a verb’s entry; it has a special status as a default rule that applies automatically whenever it is not explicitly blocked by a competing irregular. [...] Denominal verbs (those analyzed by speakers as having been derived from, or as being built around, a noun) have regular past tense forms, even if homophonous with, or ultimately derived from, an irregular verb.
The title of the second link is "Why No Mere Mortal Has Ever Flown Out to Center Field".
'Highlight' has long predated the pen as said, and comes from painting, but the noun predates the verb, which explains the regular conjugation.
With regard to 'gaslit' and 'lamplit' both the MS Word and Firefox spell checkers mark the single word entry a mistake (suggesting 'gas lit', and 'lamp lit') and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English lists neither. Google gives the two word combination as twice as common, but there a certain proportion of the entries would be invalid, so my question, based on the spell check red mark and the Longman entry has clearly been answered.
Not only is the irregular class losing members by emigration, it is not gaining new ones by immigration. When new verbs enter English via onomatopoeia (to ding, to ping), borrowings from other languages (deride and succumb from Latin), and conversions from nouns (fly out), the regular rule has first dibs on them. The language ends up with dinged, pinged, derided, succumbed, and flied out, not dang, pang, derode, succame, or flew out.
Here's the quote from Juan123's second link:
The regular past tense form is not just one of several kinds of annotations to a verb’s entry; it has a special status as a default rule that applies automatically whenever it is not explicitly blocked by a competing irregular. [...] Denominal verbs (those analyzed by speakers as having been derived from, or as being built around, a noun) have regular past tense forms, even if homophonous with, or ultimately derived from, an irregular verb.
The title of the second link is "Why No Mere Mortal Has Ever Flown Out to Center Field".
'Highlight' has long predated the pen as said, and comes from painting, but the noun predates the verb, which explains the regular conjugation.
With regard to 'gaslit' and 'lamplit' both the MS Word and Firefox spell checkers mark the single word entry a mistake (suggesting 'gas lit', and 'lamp lit') and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English lists neither. Google gives the two word combination as twice as common, but there a certain proportion of the entries would be invalid, so my question, based on the spell check red mark and the Longman entry has clearly been answered.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/24/G0052450.htmlWith regard to 'gaslit' and 'lamplit' both the MS Word and Firefox spell checkers mark the single word entry a mistake (suggesting 'gas lit', and 'lamp lit') and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English lists neither.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?b ... &va=gaslit
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/ ... 1861674581
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/di ... try/gaslit
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Sorry, something seems to have got deleted while I was drafting the post on gaslit and lamplit.
They are both given entries in Merriam Webster; the SOED gives lamplight but not gaslight.
When I said my questions had been answered I meant to say that I had realized they were valid forms. I was commenting on the spell checkers and Longmans merely to explain why I had initial doubts.
They are both given entries in Merriam Webster; the SOED gives lamplight but not gaslight.
When I said my questions had been answered I meant to say that I had realized they were valid forms. I was commenting on the spell checkers and Longmans merely to explain why I had initial doubts.