Gram., of 1832, p. 54. Churchill, in 1823, preferring the older forms, gave it thus: "Spit, spat or spit, spitten or spit."--New Gram., p. 111. NOTE:--"Johnson gives spat as the preterimperfect, and spit or spitted as the participle of this verb, when it means to pierce through with a pointed instrument: but in this sense, I believe, it is always regular; while, on the other hand, the regular form is now never used, when it signifies to eject from the mouth; though we find in Luke, xviii, 32, 'He shall be spitted on.'"--Churchill's New Gram., p. 264. This text ought to have been, "He shall be spit upon."
OBS. 4.--To strew is in fact nothing else than an other mode of spelling the verb to strow; as shew is an obsolete form for show; but if we pronounce the two forms differently, we make them different words. Walker, and some others, pronounce them alike, stro; Sheridan, Jones, Jameson, and Webster, distinguish them in utterance, stroo and stro. This is convenient for the sake of rhyme, and perhaps therefore preferable. But strew, I incline to think, is properly a regular verb only, though Wells and Worcester give it otherwise: if strewn has ever been proper, it seems now to be obsolete. EXAMPLES: "Others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way."--Matt., xxi, 8. "Gathering where thou hast not strewed."--Matt., xxv, 24.
"Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die."--Gray.
OBS. 5.--The list which I give below, prepared with great care, exhibits the redundant verbs, as they are now generally used, or as they may be used without grammatical impropriety.[291] Those forms which are supposed to be preferable, and best supported by authorities, are placed first. No words are inserted here, but such as some modern authors countenance. L. Murray recognizes bereaved, catched, dealed, digged, dwelled, hanged, knitted, shined, spilled; and, in his early editions, he approved of bended, builded, creeped, weaved, worked, wringed. His two larger books now tell us, "The Compiler has not inserted such verbs as learnt, spelt, spilt, &c. which are improperly terminated by t, instead of ed."--Octavo Gram., p. 107; Duodecimo, p. 97. But if he did not, in all his grammars, insert, "Spill, spilt, R. spilt, R.," (pp. 106, 96,) preferring the irregular form to the regular, somebody else has done it for him. And, what is remarkable, many of his amenders, as if misled by some evil genius, have contradicted themselves in precisely the same way! Ingersoll, Fisk, Merchant, and Hart, republish exactly the foregoing words, and severally become "The Compiler" of the same erroneous catalogue! Kirkham prefers spilt to spilled, and then declares the word to be "improperly terminated by t instead of ed."--Gram., p. 151. Greenleaf, who condemns learnt and spelt, thinks dwelt and spilt are "the only established forms;" yet he will have dwell and spill to be "regular" verbs, as well as "irregular!"--Gram. Simp., p. 29. Webber prefers spilled to spilt; but Picket admits only the latter. Cobbett and Sanborn prefer bereaved, builded, dealed, digged, dreamed, hanged, and knitted, to bereft, built, dealt, dug, dreamt, hung, and knit. The former prefers creeped to crept, and freezed to froze; the latter, slitted to slit, wringed to wrung; and both consider, "I bended," "I bursted" and "I blowed," to be good modern English. W. Allen acknowledges freezed and slided; and, like Webster, prefers hove to hoven: but the latter justly prefers heaved to both. EXAMP.: "The supple kinsman slided to the helm."--New Timon. "The rogues slided me into the river."--Shak. "And the sand slided from beneath my feet."-- DR. JOHNSON: in Murray's Sequel, p. 179. "Wherewith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone."--Milton's Comus, l. 449. "It freezed hard last night. Now, what was it that freezed so hard?"--Emmons's Gram., p. 25. "Far hence lies, ever freez'd, the northern main."--Savage's Wanderer, l. 57. "Has he not taught, beseeched, and shed abroad the Spirit unconfined?"--Pollok's Course of Time, B. x, l. 275.
OBS. 6.--D. Blair supposes catched to be an "erroneous" word and unauthorized: "I catch'd it," for "I caught it," he sets down for a "vulgarism."--E. Gram., p. 111. But catched is used by some of the most celebrated authors. Dearborn prefers the regular form of creep: "creep, creeped or crept, creeped or crept."--Columbian Gram., p. 38. I adopt no man's opinions implicitly; copy nothing without examination; but, to prove all my decisions to be right, would be an endless task. I shall do as much as ought to be expected, toward showing that they are so. It is to be remembered, that the poets, as well as the vulgar, use some forms which a gentleman would be likely to avoid, unless he meant to quote or imitate; as,
"So clomb the first grand thief into God's fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb."
--Milton, P. L., B. iv, l. 192.
"He shore his sheep, and, having packed the wool,
Sent them unguarded to the hill of wolves."
--Pollok, C. of T., B. vi, l. 306.
------"The King of heav'n
Bar'd his red arm, and launching from the sky
His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,
Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook."
--Dryden.
OBS. 7.--The following are examples in proof of some of the forms acknowledged below: "Where etiquette and precedence abided far away."--Paulding's Westward-Ho! p. 6. "But there were no secrets where Mrs. Judith Paddock abided."--Ib., p. 8. "They abided by the
