The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

"Tells how the drudging Goblin swet."—Milton's L'Allegro. "Weave, wove or weaved, weaving, wove, weaved, or woven."—Ward's Gram., p. 67.

   "Thou who beneath the frown of fate hast stood,
    And in thy dreadful agony sweat blood."—Young, p. 238.

OBS. 10.—The verb to shake is now seldom used in any other than the irregular form, shake, shook, shaking, shaken; and, in this form only, is it recognized by our principal grammarians and lexicographers, except that Johnson improperly acknowledges shook as well as shaken for the perfect participle: as, "I've shook it off."—DRYDEN: Joh. Dict. But the regular form, shake, shaked, shaking, shaked, appears to have been used by some writers of high reputation; and, if the verb is not now properly redundant, it formerly was so. Examples regular: "The frame and huge foundation of the earth shak'd like a coward."—SHAKSPEARE: Hen. IV. "I am he that is so love-shaked."—ID.: As You Like it. "A sly and constant knave, not to be shak'd."—ID.: Cymbeline: Joh. Dict. "I thought he would have shaked it off."—TATTLER: ib. "To the very point I shaked my head at."—Spectator, No. 4. "From the ruin'd roof of shak'd Olympus."—Milton's Poems. "None hath shak'd it off."—Walker's English Particles, p. 89. "They shaked their heads."—Psalms, cix, 25. Dr. Crombie says, "Story, in his Grammar, has, most unwarrantably, asserted, that the Participle of this Verb should be shaked."—ON ETYMOLOGY AND SYNTAX, p. 198. Fowle, on the contrary, pronounces shaked to be right. See True English Gram., p. 46.

OBS. 11.—All former lists of our irregular and redundant verbs are, in many respects, defective and erroneous; nor is it claimed for those which are here presented, that they are absolutely perfect. I trust, however, they are much nearer to perfection, than are any earlier ones. Among the many individuals who have published schemes of these verbs, none have been more respected and followed than Lowth, Murray, and Crombie; yet are these authors' lists severally faulty in respect to as many as sixty or seventy of the words in question, though the whole number but little exceeds two hundred, and is commonly reckoned less than one hundred and eighty. By Lowth, eight verbs are made redundant, which I think are now regular only: namely, bake, climb, fold, help, load, owe, wash. By Crombie, as many: to wit, bake, climb, freight, help, lift, load, shape, writhe. By Murray, two: load and shape. With Crombie, and in general with the others too, twenty-seven verbs are always irregular, which I think are sometimes regular, and therefore redundant: abide, beseech, blow, burst, creep, freeze, grind, lade, lay, pay, rive, seethe, shake, show, sleep, slide, speed, string, strive, strow, sweat, thrive, throw, weave, weep, wind, wring. Again, there are, I think, more than twenty redundant verbs which are treated by Crombie,—and, with one or two exceptions, by Lowth and Murray also,—as if they were always regular: namely, betide, blend, bless, burn, dive, dream, dress, geld, kneel, lean, leap, learn, mean, mulct, pass, pen, plead, prove, reave, smell, spell, stave, stay, sweep, wake, whet, wont. Crombie's list contains the auxiliaries, which properly belong to a different table. Erroneous as it is, in all these things, and more, it is introduced by the author with the following praise, in bad English: "Verbs, which depart from this rule, are called Irregular, of which I believe the subsequent enumeration to be nearly complete."—TREATISE ON ETYM. AND SYNT., p. 192.

OBS. 12.—Dr. Johnson, in his Grammar of the English Tongue, recognizes two forms which would make teach and reach redundant. But teached is now "obsolete," and rought is "old," according to his own Dictionary. Of loaded and loaden, which he gives as participles of load, the regular form only appears to be now in good use. For the redundant forms of many words in the foregoing list, as of abode or abided, awaked or awoke, besought or beseeched, caught or catched, hewed or hewn, mowed or mown, laded or laden, seethed or sod, sheared or shore, sowed or sown, waked or woke, wove or weaved, his authority may be added to that of others already cited. In Dearborn's Columbian Grammar, published in Boston in 1795, the year in which Lindley Murray's Grammar first appeared in York, no fewer than thirty verbs are made redundant, which are not so represented by Murray. Of these I have retained nineteen in the following list, and left the other eleven to be now considered always regular. The thirty are these: "bake, bend, build, burn, climb, creep, dream, fold, freight, geld, heat, heave, help, lay, leap, lift, light, melt, owe, quit, rent, rot, seethe, spell, split, strive, wash, weave, wet, work." See Dearborn's Gram., p. 37-45.

LIST OF THE REDUNDANT VERBS.

Imperfect Present. Preterit. Participle. Perfect Participle.

Abide, abode or abided, abiding, abode or abided.
Awake, awaked or awoke, awaking, awaked or awoke.
Belay, belayed or belaid, belaying, belayed or belaid.
Bend, bent or bended, bending, bent or bended.
Bereave, bereft or bereaved, bereaving, bereft or bereaved.
Beseech, besought or beseeched, beseeching, besought or beseeched.
Bet, betted or bet, betting, betted or bet.
Betide, betided or betid, betiding, betided or betid.
Bide, bode or bided, biding, bode or bided.
Blend, blended or blent, blending, blended or blent.
Bless, blessed or blest, blessing, blessed or blest.
Blow, blew or blowed, blowing, blown or blowed.
Build, built or builded, building, built or builded.
Burn, burned or burnt, burning, burned or burnt.
Burst, burst or bursted, bursting, burst or bursted.
Catch, caught or catched, catching, caught or catched.
Clothe, clothed or clad, clothing, clothed or clad.
Creep, crept or creeped, creeping, crept or creeped.
Crow, crowed or crew, crowing, crowed.
Curse, cursed or curst, cursing, cursed or curst.
Dare, dared or durst, daring, dared.
Deal, dealt or dealed, dealing, dealt or dealed.
Dig, dug or digged, digging, dug or digged.
Dive, dived or dove, diving, dived or diven.
Dream, dreamed or dreamt, dreaming, dreamed or dreamt.
Dress, dressed or drest, dressing, dressed or drest.
Dwell, dwelt or dwelled, dwelling, dwelt or dwelled.
Freeze, froze or freezed, freezing, frozen or freezed.
Geld, gelded or gelt, gelding, gelded or gelt.
Gild, gilded or gilt, gilding, gilded or gilt.
Gird, girded or girt, girding, girded or girt.
Grave, graved, graving, graved or graven.
Grind, ground or grinded, grinding, ground or grinded.
Hang, hung or hanged, hanging, hung or hanged.
Heat, heated or het, heating, heated or het.
Heave, heaved or hove, heaving, heaved or hoven.
Hew, hewed, hewing, hewed or hewn.
Kneel, kneeled or knelt, kneeling, kneeled or knelt.
Knit, knit or knitted, knitting, knit or knitted.
Lade, laded, lading, laded or laden.
Lay, laid or layed, laying, laid or layed.
Lean, leaned or leant, leaning, leaned or leant.
Leap, leaped or leapt, leaping, leaped or leapt.[292]
Learn, learned or learnt, learning, learned or learnt.
Light, lighted or lit, lighting, lighted or lit.
Mean, meant or meaned, meaning, meant or meaned.
Mow, mowed, mowing, mowed or mown.
Mulct, mulcted or mulct, mulcting, mulcted or mulct.
Pass, passed or past, passing, passed or past.
Pay, paid or payed, paying, paid or payed.
Pen, penned or pent, penning, penned or pent.
 (to coop,)
Plead,