[Ads-l] pet, pet, pet

[Wilson Gray]

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 12:08 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> "pet," the participial form of "pet."  Or maybe of "pat"?


By coincidence, as a child down home in East Texas, I had a problem
distinguishing "pet" from "pat." I could *hear* the difference, but since
_patting_ is a method of _petting_ and you can both pat a pet and pet a
pet. . .  Well, what's a first-language learner to do? You can see the
problem.
-- 
-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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