The Grammar of English Grammars Part 75

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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sertion 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_."--_a.n.a.lytical 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 p.r.o.nounce the two forms differently, we make them different words. Walker, and some others, p.r.o.nounce 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.

OBS. 6.--D. Blair supposes _catched_ to be an "erroneous" word and unauthorized: "I _catch'd_ it," for "I _caught_ it," he sets down for a "_vulgarism_."--_E. Gram._, p. 111. But _catched_ is used by some of the most celebrated authors. Dearborn prefers the regular form of _creep_: "creep, creeped _or_ crept, creeped _or_ crept."--_Columbian Gram._, p. 38.

I adopt no man's opinions implicitly; copy nothing without examination; but, _to prove all my decisions to be right_, would be an endless task. I shall do as much as ought to be expected, toward showing that they are so.

It is to be remembered, that the _poets_, as well as the _vulgar_, use some forms which a _gentleman_ would be likely to avoid, unless he meant to quote or imitate; as,

"So _clomb_ the first grand thief into G.o.d's fold; So since into his church lewd hirelings climb."

--_Milton, P. L._, B. iv, l. 192.

"He _sh.o.r.e_ his sheep, and, having packed the wool, Sent them unguarded to the hill of wolves."

--_Pollok, C. of T._, B. vi, l. 306.

------"The King of heav'n Bar'd his red arm, and launching from the sky His _writhen_ bolt, not shaking empty smoke, Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon _strook_."

--_Dryden_.

OBS. 7.--The following are examples in proof of some of the forms acknowledged below: "Where etiquette and precedence _abided_ far away."--_Paulding's Westward-Ho!_ p. 6. "But there were no secrets where Mrs. Judith Paddock _abided_."--_Ib._, p. 8. "They _abided_ by the forms of government established by the charters."--_John Quincy Adams, Oration_, 1831. "I have _abode_ consequences often enough in the course of my life."--_Id., Speech_, 1839. "Present, _bide_, or _abide_; Past, _bode, or abode_."--_Coar's Gram._, p. 104. "I _awaked_ up last of all."--_Ecclus._, x.x.xiii, 16. "For this are my knees _bended_ before the G.o.d of the spirits of all flesh."--_Wm. Penn_. "There was never a prince _bereaved_ of his dependencies," &c.--_Bacon_. "Madam, you have _bereft_ me of all words."--_Shakspeare_. "Reave, _reaved or reft_, reaving, _reaved or reft_.

_Bereave_ is similar."--_Ward's Practical Gram._, p. 65. "And let them tell their tales of woful ages, long ago _betid_."--_Shak_. "Of every nation _blent_, and every age."--_Pollok, C. of T._, B vii, p. 153. "Rider and horse,--friend, foe,--in one red burial _blent!_"--_Byron, Harold_, C. iii, st. 28. "I _builded_ me houses."--_Ecclesiastes_, ii, 4. "For every house is _builded_ by some man; but he that _built_ all things is G.o.d."--_Heb_.

iii, 4. "What thy hands _builded_ not, thy wisdom gained."--_Milton's P.

L._, X, 373. "Present, _bet_; Past, _bet_; Participle, _bet_."-- _Mackintosh's Gram._, p. 197; _Alexander's_, 38. "John of Gaunt loved him well, and _betted_ much upon his head."--SHAKSPEARE: _Joh. Dict, w. Bet_.

"He lost every earthly thing he _betted_."--PRIOR: _ib._ "A seraph _kneeled_."--_Pollok, C. T._, p. 95.

"At first, he declared he himself would be _blowed_, Ere his conscience with such a foul crime he would load."

--_J. R. Lowell_.

"They are _catched_ without art or industry."--_Robertson's Amer._,-Vol. i, p. 302. "Apt to be _catched_ and dazzled."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 26. "The lion being _catched_ in a net."--_Art of Thinking_, p. 232. "In their self-will they _digged_ down a wall."--_Gen._, xlix, 6. "The royal mother instantly _dove_ to the bottom and brought up her babe unharmed."-- _Trumbull's America_, i, 144. "The learned have _diven_ into the secrets of nature."--CARNOT: _Columbian Orator_, p. 82. "They have _awoke_ from that ignorance in which they had slept."--_London Encyclopedia_. "And he _slept_ and _dreamed_ the second time."--_Gen._, xli, 5. "So I _awoke_."--_Ib._, 21. "But he _hanged_ the chief baker."--_Gen._, xl, 22. "Make as if you _hanged_ yourself."--ARBUTHNOT: _in Joh. Dict._ "_Graven_ by art and man's device."--_Acts_, xvii, 29. "_Grav'd_ on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."--_Gray_. "That the tooth of usury may be _grinded_."--_Lord Bacon_.

"MILN-EE, The hole from which the _grinded_ corn falls into the chest below."--_Glossary of Craven_, London, 1828. "UNGRUND, Not _grinded_."-- _Ibid._ "And he _built_ the inner court with three rows of _hewed_ stone."--_1 Kings_, vi, 36. "A thing by which matter is _hewed_."--_Dr.

Murray's Hist. of Europ. Lang._, Vol. i, p. 378. "SCAGD or SCAD _meaned_ distinction, dividing."--_Ib._, i, 114. "He only _meaned_ to acknowledge him to be an extraordinary person."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. 12. "_The_ determines what particular thing is _meaned_."--_Ib._, p. 11. "If Hermia _mean'd_ to say Lysander lied."--_Shak_. "As if I _meaned_ not the first but the second creation."--_Barclay's Works_, iii, 289. "From some stones have rivers _bursted_ forth."--_Sale's Koran_, Vol. i, p. 14.

"So move we on; I only _meant_ To show the reed on which you _leant_."--_Scott, L. L._, C. v, st. 11.

OBS. 8.--_Layed, payed_, and _stayed_, are now less common than _laid, paid_, and _staid_; but perhaps not less correct, since they are the same words in a more regular and not uncommon orthography: "Thou takest up that [which] thou _layedst_ not down."--FRIENDS' BIBLE, SMITH'S, BRUCE'S: _Luke_, xix, 21. Scott's Bible, in this place, has "_layest_," which is wrong in tense. "Thou _layedst_ affliction upon our loins."--FRIENDS'

BIBLE: _Psalms_, lxvi, 11. "Thou _laidest_ affliction upon our loins."--SCOTT'S BIBLE, _and_ BRUCE'S. "Thou _laidst_ affliction upon our loins."--SMITH'S BIBLE, Stereotyped by J. Howe. "Which gently _lay'd_ my knighthood on my shoulder."--SINGER'S SHAKSPEARE: _Richard II_, Act i, Sc.

1. "But no regard was _payed_ to his remonstrance."--_Smollett's England_, Vol. iii, p. 212. "Therefore the heaven over you is _stayed_ from dew, and the earth is _stayed_ from her fruit."--_Haggai_, i, 10. "STAY, _i_. STAYED _or_ STAID; _pp_. STAYING, STAYED _or_ STAID."--_Worcester's Univ. and Crit. Dict._ "Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz _stayed_ by En-rogel."--_2 Sam._, xvii, 17. "This day have I _payed_ my vows."--FRIENDS' BIBLE: _Prov_, vii, 14. Scott's Bible has "_paid_." "They not only _stayed_ for their resort, but discharged divers."--HAYWARD: _in Joh. Dict._ "I _stayed_ till the latest grapes were ripe."--_Waller's Dedication_. "_To lay_ is regular, and has in the past time and participle _layed_ or _laid_."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. 54. "To the flood, that _stay'd_ her flight."--_Milton's Comus_, l. 832.

"All rude, all waste, and desolate is _lay'd_."--_Rowe's Lucan_, B. ix, l.

1636. "And he smote thrice, and _stayed_."--_2 Kings_, xiii, 18.

"When Cobham, generous as the n.o.ble peer That wears his honours, _pay'd_ the fatal price Of virtue blooming, ere the storms were _laid_."--_Shenstone_, p. 167.

OBS. 9.--By the foregoing citations, _lay, pay_, and _stay_, are clearly proved to be redundant. But, in nearly all our English grammars, _lay_ and _pay_ are represented as being always irregular; and _stay_ is as often, and as improperly, supposed to be always regular. Other examples in proof of the list: "I _lit_ my pipe with the paper."--_Addison_.

"While he whom learning, habits, all prevent, Is largely _mulct_ for each impediment."--_Crabbe, Bor._, p. 102.

"And then the chapel--night and morn to pray, Or _mulct_ and threaten'd if he kept away."--_Ib._, p. 162.

"A small s.p.a.ce is formed, in which the breath is _pent_ up."--_Gardiner's Music of Nature_, p. 493. "_Pen_, when it means to write, is always regular. Boyle has _penned_ in the sense of confined."--_Churchill's Gram._, p. 261. "So far as it was now _pled_."--ANDERSON: _Annals of the Bible_, p. 25. "_Rapped_ with admiration."--HOOKER: _Joh. Dict._ "And being _rapt_ with the love of his beauty."--_Id., ib._ "And _rapt_ in secret studies."--SHAK.: _ib._ "I'm _rapt_ with joy."--ADDISON: _ib._ "_Roast_ with fire."--FRIENDS' BIBLE: _Exod._, xii, 8 and 9. "_Roasted_ with fire."--SCOTT'S BIBLE: _Exod._, xii, 8 and 9. "Upon them hath the light _shined_."--_Isaiah_, ix, 2. "The earth _shined_ with his glory."--_Ezekiel_, xliii, 2. "After that he had _showed_ wonders."--_Acts_, vii, 36. "Those things which G.o.d before had _showed_."--_Acts_, iii, 18. "As shall be _shewed_ in Syntax."--_Johnson's Gram. Com._, p. 28. "I have _shown_ you, that the _two first_ may be dismissed."--_Cobbett's E. Gram._, -- 10. "And in this struggle were _sowed_ the seeds of the revolution."--_Everett's Address_, p. 16. "Your favour _showed_ to the performance, has given me boldness."--_Jenks's Prayers, Ded_. "Yea, so have I _strived_ to preach the gospel."--_Rom._, xv, 20.

"Art thou, like the adder, _waxen_ deaf?"--_Shakspeare. "Hamstring'd_ behind, unhappy Gyges died."--_Dryden_. "In Syracusa was I born and _wed_."--_Shakspeare_. "And thou art _wedded_ to calamity."--_Id._ "I saw thee first, and _wedded_ thee."--_Milton_. "Sprung the rank weed, and _thrived_ with large increase."--_Pope_. "Some errors never would have _thriven_, had it not been for learned refutation."--_Book of Thoughts_, p.

34. "Under your care they have _thriven_."--_Junius_, p. 5. "Fixed by being rolled closely, compacted, _knitted_."--_Dr. Murray's Hist._, Vol. i, p.

374. "With kind converse and skill has _weaved_."--_Prior_. "Though I shall be _wetted_ to the skin."--_Sandford and Merton_, p. 64. "I _speeded_ hither with the very extremest inch of possibility."--_Shakspeare_. "And pure grief _sh.o.r.e_ his old thread in twain."--_Id._ "And must I ravel out my _weaved-up_ follies?"--_Id., Rich. II_. "Tells how the drudging Goblin _swet_."--_Milton's L'Allegro_. "Weave, wove or _weaved_, weaving, wove, _weaved_, or woven."--_Ward's Gram._, p. 67.

"Thou who beneath the frown of fate hast stood, And in thy dreadful agony _sweat_ blood."--_Young_, p. 238.

OBS. 10.--The verb to _shake_ is now seldom used in any other than the irregular form, _shake, shook, shaking, shaken_; and, in this form only, is it recognized by our princ.i.p.al grammarians and lexicographers, except that Johnson improperly acknowledges _shook_ as well as _shaken_ for the perfect participle: as, "I've _shook_ it off."--DRYDEN: _Joh. Dict._ But the regular form, _shake, shaked, shaking, shaked_, appears to have been used by some writers of high reputation; and, if the verb is not now properly redundant, it formerly was so. Examples regular: "The frame and huge foundation of the earth _shak'd_ like a coward."--SHAKSPEARE: _Hen. IV_. "I am he that is so _love-shaked_."--ID.: _As You Like it_. "A sly and constant knave, not to be _shak'd_."--ID.: _Cymbeline: Joh. Dict._ "I thought he would have _shaked_ it off."--TATTLER: _ib._ "To the very point I _shaked_ my head at."--_Spectator_, No. 4. "From the ruin'd roof of _shak'd_ Olympus."--_Milton's Poems_. "None hath _shak'd_ it off."--_Walker's English Particles_, p. 89. "They _shaked_ their heads."--_Psalms_, cix, 25. Dr. Crombie says, "Story, in his Grammar, has, _most unwarrantably_, a.s.serted, that the Participle of this Verb should be _shaked_."--ON ETYMOLOGY AND SYNTAX, p. 198. Fowle, on the contrary, p.r.o.nounces _shaked_ to be right. See _True English Gram._, p. 46.

OBS. 11.--All former lists of our irregular and redundant verbs are, in many respects, defective and erroneous; nor is it claimed for those which are here presented, that they are absolutely perfect. I trust, however, they are much nearer to perfection, than are any earlier ones. Among the many individuals who have published schemes of these verbs, none have been more respected and followed than Lowth, Murray, and Crombie; yet are these authors' lists severally faulty in respect to as many as sixty or seventy of the words in question, though the whole number but little exceeds two hundred, and is commonly reckoned less than one hundred and eighty. By Lowth, eight verbs are made redundant, which I think are now regular only: namely, _bake, climb, fold, help, load, owe, wash_. By Crombie, as many: to wit, _bake, climb, freight, help, lift, load, shape, writhe_. By Murray, two: _load_ and _shape_. With Crombie, and in general with the others too, twenty-seven verbs are always irregular, which I think are sometimes regular, and therefore redundant: _abide, beseech, blow, burst, creep, freeze, grind, lade, lay, pay, rive, seethe, shake, show, sleep, slide, speed, string, strive, strow, sweat, thrive, throw, weave, weep, wind, wring_. Again, there are, I think, more than twenty redundant verbs which are treated by Crombie,--and, with one or two exceptions, by Lowth and Murray also,--as if they were always regular: namely, _betide, blend, bless, burn, dive, dream, dress, geld, kneel, lean, leap, learn, mean, mulct, pa.s.s, pen, plead, prove, reave, smell, spell, stave, stay, sweep, wake, whet, wont_. Crombie's list contains the auxiliaries, which properly belong to a different table. Erroneous as it is, in all these things, and more, it is introduced by the author with the following praise, in bad English: "_Verbs, which_ depart from this rule, are called Irregular, _of which_ I believe the subsequent enumeration to be _nearly complete_."--TREATISE ON ETYM. AND SYNT., p. 192.

OBS. 12.--Dr. Johnson, in his Grammar of the English Tongue, recognizes two forms which would make _teach_ and _reach_ redundant. But _teached_ is now "obsolete," and _rought_ is "old," according to his own Dictionary. Of _loaded_ and _loaden_, which he gives as participles of _load_, the regular form only appears to be now in good use. For the redundant forms of many words in the foregoing list, as of _abode_ or _abided, awaked_ or _awoke, besought_ or _beseeched, caught_ or _catched, hewed_ or _hewn, mowed_ or _mown, laded_ or _laden, seethed_ or _sod, sheared_ or _sh.o.r.e, sowed_ or _sown, waked_ or _woke, wove_ or _weaved_, his authority may be added to that of others already cited. In Dearborn's Columbian Grammar, published in Boston in 1795, the year in which Lindley Murray's Grammar first appeared in York, no fewer than thirty verbs are made redundant, which are not so represented by Murray. Of these I have retained nineteen in the following list, and left the other eleven to be now considered always regular. The thirty are these: "bake, _bend, build, burn_, climb, _creep, dream_, fold, freight, _geld, heat, heave_, help, _lay, leap_, lift, _light_, melt, owe, _quit_, rent, rot, _seethe, spell, split, strive_, wash, _weave, wet, work_." See _Dearborn's Gram._, p. 37-45.

LIST OF THE REDUNDANT VERBS.

_Imperfect_ _Present. Preterit. Participle. Perfect Participle_.

Abide, abode _or_ abided, abiding, abode _or_ abided.

Awake, awaked _or_ awoke, awaking, awaked _or_ awoke.

Belay, belayed _or_ belaid, belaying, belayed _or_ belaid.

Bend, bent _or_ bended, bending, bent _or_ bended.

Bereave, bereft _or_ bereaved, bereaving, bereft _or_ bereaved.

Beseech, besought _or_ beseeched, beseeching, besought _or_ beseeched.

Bet, betted _or_ bet, betting, betted _or_ bet.

Betide, betided _or_ betid, betiding, betided _or_ betid.

Bide, bode _or_ bided, biding, bode _or_ bided.

Blend, blended _or_ blent, blending, blended _or_ blent.

Bless, blessed _or_ blest, blessing, blessed _or_ blest.

Blow, blew _or_ blowed, blowing, blown _or_ blowed.

Build, built _or_ builded, building, built _or_ builded.

Burn, burned _or_ burnt, burning, burned _or_ burnt.