Past tense Spelling

David Metevia djmetevia at CHARTERMI.NET
Sun Oct 26 12:56:21 UTC 2008


In the August, 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine there is an article
about a kidnapping and murder that occurred in Chicago in 1924.  The
story has a picture of the Chicago Daily News headline: KILL BOY
KIDNAPED FOR RANSOM.  What caught my eye was the spelling of past tense
of _kidnap_.  How do the standard past tense formations change over
time?  In my mind I think of the past tense of words like kidnap that
end with a short vowel that the final consonant would be doubled -
kidnapped, rapped, admitted, and so on.  Does anyone know of resources
on this topic that track spelling "rule" changes?

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list