Often when I’m playing Scrabble, I’m testing every normally -ed word with the -t variant to see if I can make it fit, but only a small percentage of them gets accepted or is in the dictionary. Some seem self-explanatory, but others seem arbitrary, and feel like hangovers from an old mediaeval version of the language.
An example of a self-explanatory variation would be “burned” and “burnt”. One is the past particle of the verb to burn, the other is a description of the quality of having been burned. Although interchangeable, one generally feels more appropriate than the other in specific circumstances. I’m ok with that particular t/ed switcheroo. It’s stuff like the following that I’m confused about:
- Vexed/Vext
- Fixed/Fixt
- Flocked/Flockt
- Picked/Pickt
- Skinned/Skint (borderline case, “skint” has another meaning)
Those are all in the dictionary, but these aren’t:
- Backed/Backt
- Racked/Rackt
- Packed/Packt
- Fucked/Fuckt
I can’t for the life of me figure out the rule, if such a rule even exists.
Cheers!
Off the top of my head:
Spelt - past tense of “to spell”. Valid in Britain and British Commonwealth countries, though “spelled” is also accepted.
Cleft - One of the three past tenses of “cleave” that have fossilised into particular subjects at various stages. “Cloven” is ancient and “Cleaved” is the more recent.
Felt - past tense of “to feel”.
Smelt - past tense of “to smell”. This might also be more common in British English.
Past - used many times in this post(!). Derived from the past tense of “pass”, though its usage has split somewhat from “passed” even though they’re generally pronounced the same.
Spilt - past tense of “spill” not to be confused with split, (which is its own past tense). Might be another one more acceptable in British English
And none of this counts the irregular verbs that use ablaut (vowel change) and have past tenses that end in -t like taught, caught, lit etc.
Ok, but none of the words OP listed are still in use, if they ever were. All of their example words end in -ck or -x, while none of yours do, and most of your examples have taken on different meanings in common usage and no longer serve as a past-tense verb
Yeah OP’s words are definitely not accepted but British English still has lots, another I just thought of is Dreamt
They lent me a tent, but the one they sent had been bent. I wept, but at least it hadn’t been lost in the mail. I’m sure they never meant any harm.
Pelt, melt, Celt, belt, felt (the material), dealt, velt, welt, yelt.
Some of those are past tense verbs, some are me just making the sound and finding real words, one I’m not sure is a word but doesn’t sound wrong, so I hereby declare it to be a word henceforth, if it wasn’t already.