"pit X against Y" past and past participle

Sun Nov 2 16:15:22 UTC 2008

from the NYT 11/1/08, p. A10, beginning of "Law Enforcement and Civil
Rights Groups Divided Over California Ballot Measures" by Solomon Moore:

LOS ANGELES -- On Tuesday, California voters will consider three
ballot measures that propose wide-ranging changes to the state's
criminal justice system but have also have [sic: cutnpaste error] pit
law enforcement officials against civil rights advocates.

[this is from the print version.  the on-line version has the error
corrected and the non-standard verb form replaced: " ... but also pit
law enforcement officials against civil rights advocates."]

the original had this particular verb "pit" assimilated to the hit/bet/
put class, in which present (non-3sg), past, and past participle are
identical to one another and to the base form.  (as far as i know,
other verbs "pit" -- for instance, the one meaning 'remove  the pit
from' -- are entirely regular, with past and past participle
"pitted".)  none of the dictionaries i've looked at have the non-
standard past/past participle "pit", but you can google up a modest
number of relevant examples.

{"have pit * against"} gets 437 hits (with dupes removed), {"he pit
his"} 67.  but almost all the hits for the first are irrelevant
(google pulls up "have to pit * against").  here are some relevant
examples, apparently from native speakers:

The reason our nation is divided right now is because the politicos
have successfully pit the people against one another over
insignificant issues.
www.e-thepeople.org/article/38062/view?viewtype=best&skip=10

Huckabee would have actively pit the wage-payer against the wage-
earner in a fight to establish a true poverty in this nation. ...
www.johnmccain.com/blog/Read.aspx?guid=eda47774-e31f-4f63-bc24-65395e1b08d4

I could have pit the Radeon 8500 against the other ATI cards in the
500MHz iBook or a 333MHz iMac, but that hardly seemed worthwhile.
www.applelinks.com/reviews/radeon8500.shtml

And the insurance companies have pit the doctors against the lawyers
in the whole tort reform issue and laughed all the way to the bank. ...
www.buckeyestateblog.com/why_barack_obama

A lot of debates in this country have pit the environment against the
economy.
www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_delta.html

The arguements have now pit Indian against Indian. Don't you
understand this logic?
www.bismarktribune.com/articles/2007/11/28/news/state/143528.txt

most of the hits for "he pit his" are also irrelevant (lots of
misspelling of "put" as "pit", or scots "pit" 'put'), but here are a
few that look legitimate:

He had to be out in the field, testing his strength, pushing himself,
hearing the song of the Shadow Skill as he pit his mettle against new
opponents. ...
lionsofkuruda.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/shadow-skill-lyvalle-au-come-
in- from-the-rain/

This included the incredible ‘Secret Wars’ in which he pit his
favourite MCs against his favourite comic book heroes, doing uncanny
impressions of the ...
drownedinsound.com/in_depth/8586

I then imagined a rope of white light anchoring my fist to that
chimney and then he pit his strength against mine a second time.
in.spired.us/UserConsole/ViewEvent.aspx?EventName=The_
Initiation&EventID=59

As a sophomore in high school, he pit his Capri against an R-3 and
learned a little lesson. "It beat me pretty well," he said.
www.sema.org/Main/SemaOrgHome.aspx?ID=50901

Mark, 36, of Preston, has just returned from an international sand
sculpting competition in Italy, where he pit his wits against the best
in the world on a ...
archive.thisisdorset.net/2001/7/7/98998.html

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