"Strew" rhymes w/"sew" redux

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Wilson Gray wrote:

>Some may remember a brief discussion re the pronunciation of "strew"
>so that the vowel rhymes with that of "sew," hence "str[o]w str[o]wed
>str[o]wn" like "sew sewed sewn." AFAIC recall, no one else had ever
>heard this pronunciation. Even I am familiar with it only because this
>pronunciation is the one used in my family.
>
>Today, I heard Judge Greg Mathis ask whether garbage was "str[o]wn"
>about. Judge Mathis is a native of Detroit. Hence the following WAG:
>the strew-rhymes-with-sew feature is peculiar to (some subdialect(s) of)
>of BE.

I wrote:

>Not knowing about this subdialectal feature, I would've guessed that
>"strown (about)" represents a blend of "strewn" and "thrown", especially
>since the "strew"/"strewn" paradigm (however pronounced) is fading from
>most AmE dialects.

Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>I say "strewn," young pup.

I think I do too. But my point was that the "strew"/"strewn" *paradigm* is
fading, so that even for speakers who still have "strewn", the root form
"strew" may already be lost. (Quick Googlecheck: 51,300 hits for "garbage
strewn", 679 for "strewing garbage", 250 for "strew garbage".) So as a
frozen form that has lost its paradigm, "strewn" is now subject to
reshaping. And since "thrown about" is semantically akin to "strewn
about", the blend of "strown about" would make sense to me. (Or maybe I've
spent too much time on the Eggcorn Database.)


--Ben Zimmer