(I feel in my bones that spot is a derivative of spit.Spot is the name of the mark made by spitting, which is obviously one of the most primary of human acts.)
swim
swam
swum
spring
sprang
sprung
I imagine that more irregular verbs conform to this one succession than to any one of the others. But all of them, including this one, have been interrupted and obscured by the collision of such independent words as think and thank, i.e.,
think
(thank)
(thunk)
Thank is forced out to avoid collision with
thank
thanked
thanked
Now, if freeze had been regularly irregular, it would have been
friz
fraz
frozen
but the present being freeze instead of friz, the procession would normally be
freeze
frez
frozen
I don’t know whether I have made my idea plain: it is not based on visible law so much as on innate feeling. Its validity depends on whether, when I state it to you, you too feel instinctively that amid the clash of strong tenses your own mind would select these forms, in obedience to an overmastering impulse of euphony. The proper jury to render the verdict would be one of poets. I do not suppose anyone will deny that a man reacts to the genius of his mother tongue, without knowing why. There are, and must have been, even deeper depths of reaction than these strong verbs, to account for the choice of vowel sounds in different words, which process in early ages was entirely unconscious.
This, of course, is only to intimate that there must have been “method in the madness” of friz. As for clum, it seems to me that it is visibly clomb descended to the next lower level, and then denuded of its final b, probably by analogy with thumb. Indeed, it is difficult to pronounce that b unless one says clommmb, thummmb! And will you not agree with me that these are inevitable:
(drig)
drag
drog (descended to drug)
drag
(drog)
drug
(dreeg)
(dreg)
(droge)
(drogg)
(drug)
(droog)
Note 53.Span, of course, is now archaic in standard English, but it survives in vulgar American and in many other English dialects. [back]
