Can Irregulars survive?

What is the past simple of 'strike'?

The number of commonly used irregular verbs is declining. Some die of natural causes. Most modern children don’t know the word cleave or that its past is clove. Nor or are they likely to come across abide/abode.

Other irregulars like dream and learn are gradually becoming regular. How long can dreamt survive alongside dreamed? Words generally are being used on a one-size-fits all basis.

Despite this there is no danger of irregular verbs disappearing. Even before they learn to read most children can use 80 irregulars. Few now realise that ‘went’ originally came from ‘wend’ but nobody over the age of seven seriously tries to replace it with ‘goed’.

The Future

The future is less promising for new irregular verbs. All new verbs in English are regular, including all new noun conversions: I accessed, you emailed etc. Even when an old verb takes a new meaning it uses a regular pattern – the army officer rung his general but his men ringed the city.

For a new irregular verb to survive it must offer some familiar pattern in how it works. One of the most recent irregulars is sneak/snuck which you find in American English. In Britain we prefer sneaked but there is a logic to the US version: it follows the pattern of strike/struck.

Perhaps the best market for a new irregular verb is amongst young people. The coolest words are the ones that don’t follow crowd. Any takers for snooze, or tooken?

Try this English language quiz. And these crosswords here and here.