This modern usage of an old verb follows a regular construction: He flies out. The next time he comes to bat, the announcer will usually say he flied out. When a batter hits a ball to the outfield and it is caught, the ball is called a fly ball and the play is called a fly out.
But watch what happens when you use the verb to fly in baseball. To fly is an Old English verb and it is correct to say, I flew out of Atlanta. Your smurfing is becoming tiresome.Ĭontrast the Old English verbs with verbs that have been repurposed. You would undoubtedly come up with a regular construction, namely I smurf proudly. Or imagine that you are coining a new verb, for example, to smurf, meaning to pelt with a blue doll. The verb to get has a similar Old English pedigree.Ĭontrast these ancient verbs with newly-coined, modern verbs. The etymology indicates that it probably came from the past tense of wenden. So how did went become the past tense for go? In modern English, only be and go take their past tenses from entirely different verbs. In northern England and Scotland, however, eode tended to be replaced by gaed, a construction based on go. The Old English past tense was eode, of uncertain origin but evidently once a different word (perhaps connected to Gothic iddja) it was replaced 1400s by went, formerly past tense of wenden "to direct one's way" (see wend). Sanskrit jihite "goes away," Greek kikhano "I reach, meet with"), but there is not general agreement on cognates. Old Saxon, Old Frisian gan, Middle Dutch gaen, Dutch gaan, Old High German gan, German gehen), from PIE *ghe- "to release, let go" (cf. Old English gan "to go, advance, depart happen conquer observe," from West Germanic *gai-/*gæ- (cf. The oldest verbs were ones that were borrowed from other languages, or have come into English from Old English, before the patterns of regular conjugation were formed.Ĭonsider to go and its past tense went. These everyday verbs have another feature: they have been in the English language for a long time.
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