RE: Re: Re: subject-verb agreement - stridden

[Baker, John]

        Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate and Webster's New World College 4th also go for stridden as the past participle of stride.  I found this a little surprising, since I don't recall ever hearing or reading the word "stridden."  I suppose that if I were going to use the past participle of stride, I would say "strode."

        I seem to be in reasonably good company.  I did a little survey of Google, Google Groups, and Westlaw's Allnewsplus file.  "Has strode" and "have strode" were the most popular choices, with 611, 157, and 199 uses, respectively.  "Has stridden" and "have stridden" were distinctly less popular, with 189, 22, and 32 uses.  "Has strided" and "have strided" brought up the rear with 108, 12, and 4 uses.  Note that the difference is most pronounced on Westlaw, the only one of my three databanks that consistently uses professionally edited sources.

        Notwithstanding the cogent arguments that have been given for "stridden," I think that most people don't recognize it as a valid word.  "Strided," of course, is obviously inappropriate.  That leaves only "strode" as a recognized existing word that can fill the gap.

        After writing the above, I checked the Century Dictionary, which accepts either stridden or strid as the past participle.  "Has strid" and "have strid" do not seem to have any significant support on Google or Google Groups.

John Baker