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I'm not a native English speaker, so sorry if this is a very basic question. Is broadcast a verb? If it is, what is the simple past and past participle: broadcasted?

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Good question. I've heard both "broadcast" and "broadcasted" being used for the past tense of the verb. – Jez Jul 7 '11 at 16:27

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up vote 12 down vote accepted

Yes, broadcast is a verb, and Dictionary.com says either broadcast or broadcasted is acceptable as the simple past and past participle.

However, this Ngram shows that broadcast is by far the preferred version.

A study on this very issue can be found here.

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+1 for useful graph to make the point succinctly. – FumbleFingers Jul 7 '11 at 17:27
Besides the words mentioned in the article, I think that this little quirk also applies to telecast. But it curiously does not seem to have the same effect on forecast. – coleopterist Oct 29 '12 at 19:21

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