" to shod " !!

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:56 PM -0400 9/2/09, Baker, John wrote:
>         There are other cases where the past tense has taken over.
>Consider "hoist," formerly the past tense of "hoise" but now the present
>tense of the word (with the past tense now "hoisted"), and "wrought,"
>formerly the past tense of "work" (which now takes the past tense
>"worked"), but now a separate word in its own right.  For me, at least,
>"shod" and "trod" aren't there yet.
>
>
>John Baker

and then there are the modals like "must" and "might" (and "ought"?)
which have lost their past tense force

LH

>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>Of Jesse Sheidlower
>Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 2:24 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: " to shod " !!
>
>On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 02:17:40PM -0400, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>  At 2:09 PM -0400 9/2/09, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>  At 1:55 PM -0400 9/2/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>  It means "To runners who are shod, ... " = "To runners who have
>shoes
>>>>  on, ... " right? What's wrong with that? That's *nothing* like
>>>>
>>>>  "As he quietly and carefully _trodded_ the almost-unseen trail, he
>was
>>>>  alert to the possibility of booby-traps."
>>>>
>>>
>>>  I agree that Alison's example involves a participial adjective
>>>  modifying "runners", and that "to shod" is not a constituent there.
>>>  But it's not hard to google up examples where it is:
>>
>>  oops.  I meant to include some "to shod" examples verifying this
>claim.
>>
>>  How much does it cost to shod a horse?
>
>[etc.]
>
>For what it's worth, I became aware some years ago that I
>internally thought of the verb _trod_ as being present tense;
>that is, although I don't think I ever said it aloud, I'd
>always think of statements like "I'm going to trod on that
>can."
>
>I don't know why my mind did this.
>
>Jesse Sheidlower
>OED
>
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