Leant/Leaned...knelt/kneeled

Garpy · Jan 31, 2008

Arggghh. Stupid irregular verbs in the past tense.

Which scans better do you think?

He leaned - He leant

He kneeled - He knelt

He awakened - He awoke

He dealed - He dealt

NeuroFizz · Jan 31, 2008

Some of these may be separated by the Atlantic Ocean.

Albedo · Jan 31, 2008

Pah, I'll keep irregular verbs thanks. If English gets hammered any flatter it'll exist in only two dimensions.

Shweta · Jan 31, 2008

Garpy said:
He leaned - He leant

He kneeled - He knelt

He awakened - He awoke

He dealed - He dealt

I'm a bit irregular as to which irregulars I prefer

I like the bolded ones best.

But I think it partly depends on context. Knelt seems more formal-register and respectful than kneeled to me. So he kneeled next to the body and went through its pockets is fine, but the knight kneeled to the king is weird to me.

On the other hand, awakened isn't just a regular, it's related to a causative (He awakened the princess with a kiss) so it seems more... important, full of intent, to me, than awoke. So he awoke with a splitting headache, but he awakened to the full scope of his responsibility.

ETA: Gonna move this to grammar for grasshoppers.

pdr · Jan 31, 2008

Yes...

I would use these verbs in different ways.

He leaned - He leant

He leaned into the wind.
He leant against the door jamb and stared.

He kneeled - He knelt

He kneeled down carefully and examined the object.
Although I'd probably use knelt always!
He knelt before the Bishop and kissed his ring.

He awakened - He awoke

The sound of the crows dancing on the roof awakened his murderous impulse to shoot the lot.

He awoke and found himself in a strange bed.

He dealed - He dealt

Dealed I regard as American and only use dealt myself.

Shweta · Jan 31, 2008

pdr said:
He leaned - He leant

He leaned into the wind.
He leant against the door jamb and stared.

Huh, yeah, me too. Hadn't thought about it.

And now that you mention it, I use dealed/dealt differently too. I'd normally use dealt for everything, but:

He dealed out a hand of cards is acceptable to me, while Life dealed him a bad hand sounds just wrong to me. Again it's the association of the British English with a register in even (some forms of) American English, I think. Though my English is a mangled mix of the two.

Matera the Mad · Feb 1, 2008

*SHUDDER*
http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/pastverb.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/irregularverbs/irregularverbs.html

pdr · Feb 2, 2008

Er, what was that?

Your point being...?

Matera the Mad · Feb 3, 2008

That a good reference beats the hell out of an uninformed debate. Speakee Inglis?

Sage · Feb 3, 2008

I've never heard or seen "leant." The rest I've seen both variations, but I prefer knelt and dealt (and can go either way on awakened vs. awoke). I'm American.

ErylRavenwell · Feb 3, 2008

"Awakened" sounds more dramatic than "awoke".

pdr · Feb 3, 2008

A good...

reference?
No, neither are acceptable as 'good' references.

Nor are your manners on this board. If you wish to take part in this debate, do so remembering that many members are not American, and that different forms of English use different verb forms.

Most of us long time members have learnt a great deal from this cosmopolitan exchange and we like it.

pdr · Feb 3, 2008

Do you find that...

there are two different meanings here when using awakened and awoke, Eryl?

Sage, do you see a difference in meaning between leant and leaned as in the two examples?
He leaned - He leant

He leaned into the wind.
He leant against the door jamb and stared.

Sage · Feb 3, 2008

I've never heard "leant" before. But I looked it up in dictionary.com, and it said it was mostly British, so that may be why (Doctor Who must not have used it yet

)

My guess would be that the first is similar to "slanted" and the second is more like "rested"

pdr · Feb 3, 2008

Yep!

Leant and leaned have those separate meanings for me.

ErylRavenwell · Feb 3, 2008

pdr said:
there are two different meanings here when using awakened and awoke, Eryl?

Not in meanings per se. But when used in the context of genres, the difference can be stylistic.

absitinvidia · Feb 4, 2008

Shweta said:
Huh, yeah, me too. Hadn't thought about it.

And now that you mention it, I use dealed/dealt differently too. I'd normally use dealt for everything, but:

He dealed out a hand of cards is acceptable to me, while Life dealed him a bad hand sounds just wrong to me. Again it's the association of the British English with a register in even (some forms of) American English, I think. Though my English is a mangled mix of the two.

Is "dealed" a proper form? I've not seen it before, and it's not in my (American English) dictionaries.

Shweta · Feb 5, 2008

absitinvidia said:
Is "dealed" a proper form? I've not seen it before, and it's not in my (American English) dictionaries.

It sounds okay to me, but doesn't look so good :tongue

Quick poke at the google corpus says it's rare, 150 000 hits vs 40 million for dealt. But I think I've heard it in the spoken form of the language more (relatively) often than that.

Leant/Leaned...knelt/kneeled

Garpy

keyboard monkey

NeuroFizz

The grad students did it

Albedo

Alex

Shweta

gone

pdr

Shweta

gone

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

pdr

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

Sage

Our Lady of Parentheticals

ErylRavenwell

pdr

pdr

Sage

Our Lady of Parentheticals

pdr

ErylRavenwell

absitinvidia

A bit of a wallflower

Shweta

gone