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I always get “mad” (we don’t actually get upset with each other) at a friend of mine because he uses the UK versions for the past tense of verbs like spill or spell, saying spilt or spelt instead of the American versions like spilled or spelled, etc. He’s “retaliated” (just teasing) by saying ✻feeled and ✻builded rather than felt and built.

Does anyone know why American English changed ‑t to ‑ed only for certain verbs but not for others?

tchrist
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Elle Fromm
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    American English? Which one? Note how many theatres (sorry, theaters) are spelled/spelt the -re way on Broadway. And in the UK, we have dogs homes and dogs' homes (the funded kennels). We are two nations divided by many streams of language. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '19 at 22:52
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    @EdwinAshworth This question appears to be based on a false hypothesis. It's not true that you cannot use the -t versions of past tenses in the United States: forms like spilt, swept, slept, dreamt, wept, kept, knelt, crept, leapt, sent, lent, rent and all the rest continue to be grammatical in American English. That's because there are no “for-use-in-England-only” inflections of verbs in our shared language. Variant forms have always existed everywhere for these even if specific personal preferences vary. On the other hand, pronouns like hoo and tha don’t cross the pond. – tchrist Dec 08 '19 at 23:08
  • It's "spelled" because "spelt" is a form of wheat. – Hot Licks Dec 08 '19 at 23:17
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    @HotLicks Smoked smelt are a wonder to be—um, olfactorily perceived. – tchrist Dec 08 '19 at 23:21
  • @tchrist - I wonder why one would get mad at someone for misusing the language, if they are not doing so intentionally, and their errors do not create a hardship for anyone. – Hot Licks Dec 08 '19 at 23:26
  • @HotLicks I—um felt (also plant-related) there must be a suitable counterexample, but tchrist has won the race to the best one. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '19 at 23:28
  • Is your friend from either the US or the UK? Is nationalism involved? – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '19 at 23:31
  • British versus American. The timing suggests Noah Webster had something to do with it. – Spencer Dec 08 '19 at 23:35
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    And here in Canada we're bombarded by all possible spellings. I've noticed that I personally tend to use "—t" as an adjective and "—ed" as a verb. But sometimes I use "—t" as a verb if it's very weak (e.g. "I burnt the toast by leaving it in too long" vs. "The buttered toast tasted rancid, so I threw it into the fire and burned it."). – Ray Butterworth Dec 09 '19 at 01:32
  • @HotLicks But the language is not being "misused", and using -t forms is no error. This is some variant on the recency illusion applied to locale instead: different isn't wrong and it is folly to demand that another native speaker change their native speech to mimic your own differences. – tchrist Dec 09 '19 at 01:35
  • @tchrist - Right. If it's silly to get mad at someone for misusing the language, it's even sillier to get mad at them for using it correctly, just not as the listener would like. – Hot Licks Dec 09 '19 at 01:53
  • @KannE - I would probably say "It smelled to high heaven". (Tropical southern Minnesota) – Hot Licks Dec 09 '19 at 01:54
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    Apologies if I came off rude or snobbish. Our language discussions are a characteristic of our friendship; we don't actually get upset with each other. It just made me curious if there was a reason that some words use both -lt or -ed, but some don't. – Elle Fromm Dec 09 '19 at 02:05
  • @ElleFromm Ok thanks. I've edited your post to include that you two aren't actually angry with each other, and to apply some formatting improvements. Please feel free to edit it if I’ve misstated anything. – tchrist Dec 09 '19 at 02:28
  • Understand that there are some people who LOVE to mispronounce words (especially if there's a pun involved). – Hot Licks Dec 09 '19 at 03:22
  • It is not always as you say: Americans say lit a candle, Brits can say lighted a candle; there are other examples. – Arm the good guys in America Dec 12 '19 at 01:09

2 Answers2

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From a linguistic and phonetics standpoint, in the majority of cases, the suffix -t as a formative of past participle of verbs appeared as a result of the reduction of -ed to -'d, and the devocalization of d.

Here is the full explanation from OED with some historical notes:

Formative of the past participle in some weak verbs, for earlier -d and -ed (see -ed suffix1), due usually to the devocalization of d after a breath consonant, as in nipped, nip'd, nipt. In some verbs the use of t for -ed goes back to Germanic, esp. in apparently contracted or irregular verbs, as bought, brought, might, thought, wrought (Gothic bauht, brâht, maht, þâht, waurht); in others it appears in West Germanic, as sought (Gothic sôkid, Old Saxon and Old English sôht); in others only in Old English as laught (læht), taught (tæht, taht). But in the majority of cases the t is of later appearance, arising from the reduction of -ed to -'d, -d in Middle or Modern English, with consequent devocalization of d, not only after breath consonants, as in dropt, nipt, crept, slept, swept, left, lost, tost, past, but, in certain cases, after liquids and nasals, as in felt, spelt, spilt, dreamt, burnt, meant, pent; also in contracted formations, such as built, bent, lent, sent, spent, girt, cast. But in many words where the pronunciation has t, the current spelling is -ed, e.g. blessed, dropped, hushed, passed for blest, dropt, husht, past.

OED has a separate entry for the suffix -t as a formative of the past tense of some weak verbs and adds that: "In modern English on the contrary the spelling in t is more frequent in the past participle, esp. when used adjectivally, than in the past tense: cf. tempest-tost (see tempest-tossed adj.), the wind tossed the ship; in time past, he passed his time."

Additionally, it is not only used in British English. For example, shortening of a long vowel in the participle of certain verbs, as in crept, slept, the spelling with -t is universal.

ermanen
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This question is very hard, so I will provide 20% of an answer only.

The British isles had speakers of many different dialects of English. The people who went on to colonize the US generally did not speak RP, but rather mostly less reputable dialects. In most cases you'll find that features of "American" English are simply features of a non-RP English dialect that disproportionately supplied American colonists. And so on for other world Englishes. I suppose some Americanisms can also be explained by substrate influences (esp. Spanish loan words), but most are explainable by an evolutionary bottleneck, as it were.

  • You could mine this reference for a far stronger answer. – tchrist Dec 09 '19 at 03:01
  • @tchrist I had at hand Crystal's The English Language, was about to revise, then decided to wash the dishes instead! –  Dec 09 '19 at 03:23
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    Interestingly, Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary shows only spelled (or rather, spell'd). I'm pretty sure that there was no such thing as "RP" in the 18th Century. – Spencer Dec 09 '19 at 03:25
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    @tchrist That reference undermines jlovegren's argument. "It may well be the case that the more conservative nature of BrE with respect to this variable has to be attributed to an avoidance strategy treating the regular forms as a morphological Americanism". – Spencer Dec 09 '19 at 03:36
  • @Spencer the reference is in no position to undermine my claim. It is not a work of historical linguistics and is not really a relevant resource for answering the question. –  Dec 09 '19 at 04:51
  • Bear in mind that English RP didn't really become established until sometime in the nineteenth century. How members of the governing class spoke in the eighteenth century is really a matter of some conjecture. Whilst historic written forms of language are readily available - there are no voice recordings from those times. – WS2 Dec 11 '19 at 23:18