[Ads-l] Surely, this isn't a real word!

[Wilson Gray]

"... smoothed. ... ..._smoothen_ the borders."

"Smoothen"?!

In Google:

664,000 hits

Grammarist.com: "Some[!] dictionaries list _smoothen_, a verb."

And one of those dictionaries is MW. IMO, that's close enough for
government work. I grant that it *is* a real word. But, how have I been
able to live nearly eight dekkids without ever having come across this word
before a few minutes ago? Why does the author not use "smoothened" instead
of "smoothed"?

Youneverknow.

IAC, GB has a couple of 17th-C. cites, the oldest from 1669: "... and
smoothen it with a feather."
-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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