earnt

[VintageGardenia]

I have seen this for "earned" a few times on MN and haven't noticed it in real life. Does anyone know if it is a regional variation / mistake / some sort of Shakespearian usage?

[wheresthehamster]

Isn't it just the same as 'learnt' and 'dreamt'? Just different ways of saying earned, learned and dreamed.

Oh and slept

[beansontoast]

you can say both cant you?

learnt,dreamt,spelt...

[beansontoast]

wikiwotsit

[VintageGardenia]

My dictionary does give some past participles like learnt, and so on, but not earnt.

[Habbibu]

I suspect that earnt may be the original - a lot of the "ed" endings were added to "strong" verbs later, in analogy with weak verb endings - so the past of "climb", which was clomb, becomes climbed, etc - that said, it's not a terribly good example, as earn was, I think, a weak verb!

Will have a beak at OED.

[policywonk]

What are 'weak' and 'strong' verbs, habb?

[VintageGardenia]

Clomb! I love that!

What do you mean strong / weak verbs? Are you a linguist? Yes please to finding out - I have only the Shorter.

[Habbibu]

OED not v. helpful. My guess is that they were regional variants which made their way into standard English, but their survival has been more haphazard - so we tend to say "spelt" rather than "spelled" but learned, rather than learnt. Burnt/Burned is a good example.

pw - am dredging up my OE grammar now - strong verbs essentially those which have a change in the medial vowel when in the past tense. American English is interesting here, as it's retained a few more strong forms, such as "dive/dove" where we'd say "dived".

[Habbibu]

I was a historical linguist in a previous life... Will now have to dig out old books to make sure I'm right and explain better.

[policywonk]

I see. You are tremendously well-informed.

[Habbibu]

On a teeny tiny area, pw. I know fuck all about most things!

[VintageGardenia]

Wow. Exactly the sort of answer I was looking for, intrigued.

[Jux]

I always thought 'learned' (two syllables) was an adjective while learnt was a verb?

I always use earnt as well.

I hate glided, always think it should be glid but can quite see why it isn't (it sounds ridiculous!)

[Habbibu]

Jux, it turns out you're a natural Old English speaker!

"The Eng. vb. remained strong until the present century; the usual inflexion is now glided, though glid might be used in the past tense without causing surprise. All other str. forms occurring in recent writings are distinctly archaistic"

[Jux]

Aha, I knew I spent too much time trying to read Beowulf in the original!

[clam]

I heard someone say 'dove' recently, as opposed to dived. Mind you, they were American. I am right that this is wrong, aren't I?

[StealthPolarBear]

isn't burnt an adjective (as in burnt toast) but burned a verb?

[Habbibu]

Dove is fine - it's the older form of the verb, and survived in American English (which suggests that the change to dived in British English happened after the Mayflower sailed).

Burnt and burned are both simple past or past participle of "to burn"

[midnightexpress]

I think there's an American thing with the others too. iirc, American English always uses the 'learnt', 'spelt' variant, but BE can use both. I think it's that way round. It would fit in with what Habbibu says about the older form being the -t variant, as the older ones (like 'fall' for 'autumn') seem to be the ones that are retained in Am English.

[Habbibu]

gotten is another good example, midnight - it's a form that fell out of use in BrE, but remained in AmE.

[Habbibu]

amn't I is very common in Scotland, amici. And I suppose it's grammatically more "accurate" - suspect the plural form has some kind of subjunctive origin.

[VintageGardenia]

Amn't I still very common in Ireland, where I am.