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!
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.