Boilt or boiled

Question

Which word should be used here; 'boilt' or 'boiled'?

When the mother came home, the dinner had already been boilt/boiled.

I know that prepared/cooked/done are correct options, but I had to underline in my sentence that it was 'boiled'.

Should I remove 'the' before mother?

Answer 1

I could not find the word "boilt" in any of the standard English dictionaries. A further research led me to a fact; there was a great deal of spelling variation in the early centuries of its use. Regional dictionaries show examples of word "boilt", especially in Scotland, Ulster, the Isle of Man, and parts of the USA (especially those influenced by Scots-Irish). A Scots poetic example from 1790: 'Twa pints o' weel-boilt solid sowins' [an oat-meal beverage].

With verbs which have two -ed forms, such as spoiled and spoilt, the situation is interesting and not entirely understood. The -t ending is rare in American English, certainly. In British English, an aspectual distinction is usually involved. The -ed form is used when the duration of an action or the process of acting is being emphasized, and the -t form when something happens once, or takes up very little time, or the focus is on the result of a process rather than on the process itself. Consider "spoiled" and "spoilt".

Credits: David Crystal (original research and most text, credibility verified.)

Answer 2

The form boilt is likely the result of terminal devoicing due to the unstressing and subsequent compression into a single syllable of the sound for boiled. Compare to forms such as dreamt from dreamed. Nonetheless, boilt would likely be considered a rather uncommon form of this usage, and is generally not used in written language.

As for the "the" before "mother", it depends on whether you are using the word as a proper noun. In other words, if you capitalize "Mother", omit the "the"; if you do not capitalize "mother", include the "the".

Answer 3

I live in the South (of the United States), and you'll sometimes here this pronunciation either in the deep hinterlands of our region or as "stereotypical" Southern accent. The only exception to this I can think of is in the phrase "boilt peanuts." Any good Alabamian will start to salivate when they hear a vender yelling "boilt peanuts!" Some Southerners also use Neckkit for Naked. Usually, though, this is in jest and as the joke goes, "Naked" is how you were born, "Neckkit" is what your parents were when they conceived you.