"babysit" zero preterite

[Benjamin Barrett]

On Jun 25, 2012, at 6:09 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 6:24 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> I think "babysat" is still much more frequent than "babysit" [past] and "babysitted" combined.
>
> I take your word fir it that "babysit" and :babysitted" even exist!;-)
> I can recall when _snuck_ was regarded as merely a joke and even
> bluesmen with sharecropping for day jobs used only _sneaked_ in their
> back-door-man songs.
>
> Things change,

Do you remember back to 1887, the first citation in the OED? :)

1887   Lantern (New Orleans) 17 Dec. 3/3   He grubbed ten dollars from de bums an den snuck home.

There are nine other citations, too.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

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