|elt vs. elled|
elt vs. elled
Jun. 29th, 2005 @ 06:04 pm
I find words too wonderful to be butchered by tenses - as follows:
smell: when we want to say we sniffed something yesterday, do we say we "smelt it yesterday" or "smelled it yesterday"?
"smelt" just sounds like you are boiling down tin in a large vat in some rundown factory.
spell: when we want to say we arranged the letters of a word in the wrong order, as according to a dictionary, do you we say we "spelt the word wrong" or "spelled the word wrong"?
"spelt" sounds like you just spilled your letters on your lap.
which brings me to "spill"...
Current Music: She Wants Me - Belle & Sebastian
|Date:||October 15th, 2005 02:41 am (UTC)|| |
The difference is dialectical:
- "smelled" and "spelled" are generally American English
- "smelt" and "spelt" are generally British English
From what you said about the tenses the sound better to you, I'd assume you speak American English.
--Karla (I just now found this community)
|Date:||November 22nd, 2005 11:07 pm (UTC)|| |
Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the "t" past tense ending, preserved in some words such as 'swept', is a more archaic past tense. I'm not entirely sure of the phonological specifics, although it might have something to do with bilabials such as in 'swept' and 'dreamt' because I don't remember there being a word 'spellt'. Of course, I could be wrong.
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