The irregular tag has no wiki summary.
2
votes
1answer
183 views
Why is “sew” pronounced as “so”?
Why is sew (/səʊ/ or /sō/) pronounced similar to so rather than to few or sue?
Looking at its etymology,
Old English siwian "to stitch," earlier siowian, from Proto-Germanic *siwjanan (cf. Old ...
3
votes
2answers
397 views
Irregular past tense confusion with compound noun/verb. More examples?
Students of martial arts may be familiar with a breakfall, which can (depending on the situation) be treated as a noun or a verb.
I am often amused when speakers, even native English speakers (myself ...
-1
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2answers
156 views
Why is 'shone' incorrect in this sentence? [closed]
Why is shone incorrect in this sentence?
The closer I got, the brighter the light shone.
0
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0answers
270 views
Acronyms and Mnemonics to remember SAT Grammar [closed]
I'm taking the SAT very soon, and being a slow test-taker means I need some quick ways to identify grammar errors and possible amends. Here's the most common rules on the SAT:
Important SAT Grammar ...
1
vote
2answers
219 views
What irregular verbs are there in Early Modern English?
Can anyone tell me, or direct me to a site where it would have a list of, irregular verbs in Early Modern English? I understand verbs such as "to be" or "to have", but how many more are there, and ...
2
votes
3answers
448 views
Past participle of “flaw”
According to Wiktionary, the past participle of "flaw" is flawed, and flawn is not mentioned as being a valid alternative. However, the past participle of "draw" is drawn. I know that Modern English ...
27
votes
6answers
1k views
Are there any words in English that have a plural with a separate derivation?
There are some irregular plurals in English (child/children, goose/geese), but all of the ones I know of share the same root word.
In some languages, there are some irregular pairs where the singular ...
0
votes
3answers
786 views
How to use “offset” when talking to a vendor?
I am having a problem with the word offset. This is what I'm going to type to my vendor:
If we do not receive your Statement of Account by 30 Mar '12, all payments will be "offsetted".
Is it ...
5
votes
2answers
419 views
Are uncountable nouns considered irregular plurals like man men?
Is "rice", for example only, considered an irregular plural?
27
votes
5answers
1k views
Is it possible for a new irregular verb to appear in English language?
Consider these verbs in past tense:
faxed, emailed, googled
they are all regular verbs made out of new nouns.
Are there any new irregular verbs that I'm not aware of?
3
votes
3answers
346 views
Plurality of data [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is “data” considered singular or plural?
Milton Friedman, the Nobel-prize winning economist used to threaten that he would "take away any graduate student's ...
22
votes
2answers
2k views
Why is 'sheep' the same when talking about one or more than one?
I am trying to find out why sheep has the plural sheep. I have found different explanations, such as, "it is because they were seen as uncountable, as in 'a herd of sheep'", "because it comes from ...
-1
votes
1answer
498 views
Irregular verbs in English
The English language has a huge number of irregular verbs(~470). This is significantly more than other languages e.g. French (~130), German (~200)
Irregular verbs make the English language ...
13
votes
3answers
4k views
Is there a term for words that have identical singular and plural forms?
Is there a term for nouns that have identical singular and plural forms? For example,
sheep
fish
glasses
aircraft/spacecraft
etc.
5
votes
2answers
122 views
Is there a verb that doesn't take the participle form when used in Present Perfect?
I remember about a month ago I was speaking to a friend and I said a Present Perfect sentence like "I have [VERB]". I forget the verb but I remember it was an everyday verb, not something exotic. But ...
5
votes
2answers
264 views
How can you make “to be” explicit and simple in this future conditional sentence?
I can say "Jerry's been a bad pussycat this morning" or "Hey, Jerry, you be a good pussycat now" or "Jerry's been active all morning so he's being a good pussycat now". All these involve the use of ...
16
votes
3answers
2k views
Does a gerund always end with -ing? If so, why?
After asking what the difference is between a gerund and a participle, I began to wonder if all gerunds end with -ing, since I couldn't think of any that didn't. If they do, why?
6
votes
1answer
151 views
Are there other verbs like “be” and “go”?
The verbs be and go have the nice peculiarity that their various forms (be/was and go/went) come from originally distinct verbs. Are there other such verbs?
3
votes
2answers
273 views
Irregular plurals. Leathermans or Leathermen?
Which plural do you use for a word that should have a regular plural but ends with a word that has its own irregular one? The example that made me ask was "leatherman" (the multitool) but there are ...
9
votes
2answers
430 views
Evolution of irregular verbs over the last century
I learned at school that irregular verbs are slowly disappearing from the language: "spelled" is more used than "spelt", "learned" than "learnt", etc. But recently, someone told me that some new ...
4
votes
5answers
555 views
How do you create the adjective form of an irregular verb such as “read”?
If I understand correctly, some adjectives can be derived from verbs.
For example, an interested person is someone who is interested in me, and an interesting person is someone who is interesting to ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
Why is “door” pronounced with an “o” sound and not a “u”?
Why is door pronounced as in 'o' not as in 'u' ?
6
votes
2answers
2k views
'Irrealistic' or 'unrealistic'?
I basically learnt that words that start with a 'm' or 'p' get 'im' as a negative prefix, whilst words starting with 'r' get 'ir' in such a case (irreverent, irrelevant).
However, I stumbled upon ...
9
votes
3answers
532 views
How to deal with irregular plural(s)?
What happens if you have a written phrase like
We were looking at the same poster(s).
but with a noun that has an irregular plural? E.g. with baby/babies, would this be the correct form?
We ...
10
votes
6answers
470 views
When is it correct to not use the irregular form for a plural? e.g. mouses vs. mice
I seem to recall that an English teacher somewhere along the course of my education had indicated that when referencing distinct types of a word, e.g. a computer mouse and the mammal, it would be ...
21
votes
6answers
25k views
Which is correct: “troubleshooted” or “troubleshot”?
Troubleshooted is not a word, but troubleshot is.
Is this really the correct word to use?
I always feel like saying:
I troubleshooted it.
vs
I troubleshot it
For some reason, it just ...
