stealed

[Jonathan Lighter]

A guest commentator on NPR just said thats omebody's complaining that Google
has "stealed their search engine."

This is the second time in recent weeks that I've heard someone with a
college degree say "stealed" for "stolen" or perhaps even "stole."

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same guy. Be that as it may, neither had a
foreign (of course I mean "international") accent.

Memories decay, but I can't claim that I saw "stealed" more than once or
twice in twenty-five years of university teaching. And I never heard anyone
say it.

But since unpleasant memories are less likely to decay, and words are my
business, that's undoubtedly true.

JL



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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