A redundant verb is a verb that forms the preterit or the perfect participle in two or more ways, and so as to be both regular and irregular; as, thrive, thrived or throve, thriving, thrived or thriven. Of this class of verbs, there are about ninety-five, beside sundry derivatives and compounds.
OBSERVATIONS.
OBS. 1.—Those irregular verbs which have more than one form for the preterit or for the perfect participle, are in some sense redundant; but, as there is no occasion to make a distinct class of such as have double forms that are never regular, these redundancies are either included in the preceding list of the simple irregular verbs, or omitted as being improper to be now recognized for good English. Several examples of the latter kind, including both innovations and archaisms, will appear among the improprieties for correction, at the end of this chapter. A few old preterits or participles may perhaps be accounted good English in the solemn style, which are not so in the familiar: as, "And none spake a word unto him."—Job, ii, 13. "When I brake the five loaves."—Mark, viii, 19. "And he drave them from the judgement-seat."—Acts, xviii, 16. "Serve me till I have eaten and drunken."—Luke, xvii, 8. "It was not possible that he should be holden of it."—Acts, ii, 24. "Thou castedst them down into destruction."—Psal., lxxiii, 18. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity."—Ib., li, 5. "A meat-offering baken in the oven."—Leviticus, ii, 4.
"With casted slough, and fresh celerity."—SHAK., Henry V.
"Thy dreadful vow, loaden with death."—ADDISON: in Joh. Dict.
OBS. 2.—The verb bet is given in Worcester's Dictionary, as being always regular: "BET, v. a. [i. BETTED; pp. BETTING, BETTED.] To wager; to lay a wager or bet. SHAK."—Octavo Dict. In Ainsworth's Grammar, it is given as being always irregular: "Present, Bet; Imperfect, Bet; Participle, Bet."—Page 36. On the authority of these, and of some others cited in OBS. 6th below, I have put it with the redundant verbs. The verb prove is redundant, if proven, which is noticed by Webster, Bolles, and Worcester, is an admissible word. "The participle proven is used in Scotland and in some parts of the United States, and sometimes, though rarely, in England.—'There is a mighty difference between not proven and disproven.' DR. TH. CHALMERS. 'Not proven.' QU. REV."—Worcester's Universal and Critical Dict. The verbs bless and dress are to be considered redundant, according to the authority of Worcester, Webster, Bolles, and others. Cobbett will have the verbs, cast, chide, cling, draw, grow, shred, sling, slink, spring, sting, stride, swim, swing, and thrust, to be always regular; but I find no sufficient authority for allowing to any of them a regular form; and therefore leave them, where they always have been, in the list of simple irregulars. These fourteen verbs are a part of the long list of seventy which this author says, "are, by some persons, erroneously deemed irregular." Of the following nine only, is his assertion true; namely, dip, help, load, overflow, slip, snow, stamp, strip, whip. These nine ought always to be formed regularly; for all their irregularities may well be reckoned obsolete. After these deductions from this most erroneous catalogue, there remain forty-five other very common verbs, to be disposed of contrary to this author's instructions. All but two of these I shall place in the list of redundant verbs; though for the use of throwed I find no written authority but his and William B. Fowle's. The two which I do not consider redundant are spit and strew, of which it may be proper to take more particular notice.
OBS. 3.—Spit, to stab, or to put upon a spit, is regular; as, "I spitted frogs, I crushed a heap of emmets."—Dryden. Spit, to throw out saliva, is irregular, and most properly formed thus: spit, spit, spitting, spit. "Spat is obsolete."—Webster's Dict. It is used in the Bible; as, "He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle."—John, ix, 6. L. Murray gives this verb thus: "Pres. Spit; Imp. spit, spat; Perf. Part. spit, spitten." NOTE: "Spitten is nearly obsolete."—Octavo Gram., p. 106. Sanborn has it thus: "Pres. Spit; Imp. spit; Pres. Part. spitting; Perf. Part. spit, spat."—Analytical Gram., p. 48. Cobbett, at first, taking it in the form, "to spit, I spat, spitten," placed it among the seventy which he so erroneously thought should be made regular; afterwards he left it only in his list of irregulars, thus: "to spit, I spit, spitten."—Cobbett's E. Gram., of 1832, p. 54. Churchill, in 1823, preferring the older forms, gave it thus: "Spit, spat or spit, spitten or spit."—New Gram., p. 111. NOTE:—"Johnson gives spat as the preterimperfect, and spit or spitted as the participle of this verb, when it means to pierce through with a pointed instrument: but in this sense, I believe, it is always regular; while, on the other hand, the regular form is now never used, when it signifies to eject from the mouth; though we find in Luke, xviii, 32, 'He shall be spitted on.'"—Churchill's New Gram., p. 264. This text ought to have been, "He shall be spit upon."
OBS. 4.—To strew is in fact nothing else than an other mode of spelling the verb to strow; as shew is an obsolete form for show; but if we pronounce the two forms differently, we make them different words. Walker, and some others, pronounce them alike, stro; Sheridan, Jones, Jameson, and Webster, distinguish them in utterance, stroo and stro. This is convenient for the sake of rhyme, and perhaps therefore preferable. But strew, I incline to think, is properly a regular verb only, though Wells and Worcester give it otherwise: if strewn has ever been proper, it seems now to be obsolete. EXAMPLES: "Others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way."—Matt., xxi, 8. "Gathering where thou hast not strewed."—Matt., xxv, 24.
"Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die."—Gray.
OBS. 5.—The list which I give below, prepared with great care, exhibits the redundant verbs, as they are now generally used, or as they may be used without grammatical impropriety.[291] Those forms which are supposed to be preferable, and best supported by authorities, are placed first. No words are inserted here, but such as some modern authors countenance. L. Murray recognizes bereaved, catched, dealed, digged, dwelled, hanged, knitted, shined, spilled; and, in his early editions, he approved of bended, builded, creeped, weaved, worked, wringed. His two larger books now tell us, "The Compiler has not inserted such verbs as learnt, spelt, spilt, &c. which are improperly terminated by t, instead of ed."—Octavo Gram., p. 107; Duodecimo, p. 97. But if he did not, in all his grammars, insert, "Spill, spilt, R. spilt, R.," (pp. 106, 96,) preferring the irregular form to the regular, somebody else has done it for him. And, what is remarkable, many of his amenders, as if misled by some evil genius, have contradicted themselves in precisely the same way! Ingersoll, Fisk, Merchant, and Hart, republish exactly the foregoing words, and severally become "The Compiler" of the same erroneous catalogue! Kirkham prefers spilt to spilled, and then declares the word to be "improperly terminated by t instead of ed."—Gram., p. 151. Greenleaf, who condemns learnt and spelt, thinks dwelt and spilt are "the only established forms;" yet he will have dwell and spill to be "regular" verbs, as well as "irregular!"—Gram. Simp., p. 29. Webber prefers spilled to spilt; but Picket admits only the latter. Cobbett and Sanborn prefer bereaved, builded, dealed, digged, dreamed, hanged, and knitted, to bereft, built, dealt, dug, dreamt, hung, and knit. The former prefers creeped to crept, and freezed to froze; the latter, slitted to slit, wringed to wrung; and both consider, "I bended," "I bursted" and "I blowed," to be good modern English. W. Allen acknowledges freezed and slided; and, like Webster, prefers hove to hoven: but the latter justly prefers heaved to both. EXAMP.: "The supple kinsman slided to the helm."—New Timon. "The rogues slided me into the river."—Shak. "And the sand slided from beneath my feet."— DR. JOHNSON: in Murray's Sequel, p. 179. "Wherewith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone."—Milton's Comus, l. 449. "It freezed hard last night. Now, what was it that freezed so hard?"—Emmons's Gram., p. 25. "Far hence lies, ever freez'd, the northern main."—Savage's Wanderer, l. 57. "Has he not taught, beseeched, and shed abroad the Spirit unconfined?"—Pollok's Course of Time, B. x, l. 275.