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Chris -- 2018-04-11
It amazed me how common these two are. These are just a few examples of many.
While his skin turns pale as snow. butchered he lies here bleeding in my arms. slewn by the men of the single god. hatred burns in my chest.
The Bible tells us that Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Shamefully, ten times that many customers are slewn every day by the same instrument.
In the ensuing battle, Elendil was slewn and Isildur bore up his father’s broken sword Narsil to cut the One Ring from Sauron’s finger, thus vanquishing him
Probably this usage ( slewn = slain ) is from people remembering it isn’t slayed but an -n form, and also remembering slew . ( Slayed is also very common fwtw.)
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The next one is probably a blend of strewn , slung , and in some cases likely spewed .
It normally ends up with me, a piece of corn and the bodies of his entire family, including yet to be borns, all slewn across his/her front lawn.
While the meaty Mud Pluggers and Big Rigs can make stunning time through mud slewn lower lands.
The atheists are tickled pink, tho you can guess the righteous judgments slewn frothily from the other 60% of “commentators.â€
a striking centerfold ad for Chevrolet. The half to the left shows a Mexican cowboy, sombrero on his head, rope slewn over his shoulder, with his horse in the blurred distance. The half to the right, shows a black 2007 Silverado against a yellow gold background.
Slewn also occurs as a past participle of the verb slew :
Equipped with relative encoders, the 40-inch has a fast speed, motorized slew motion in right ascension but is hand-slewn in declination.
angular speed searchlights may be slewn at. ..... lowing one searchlight slewn at a time is a clear disadvantage
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-01-30 22:24:00)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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A very fun post. I’ve heard “slown” for “slowed” so often that it almost doesn’t feel incorrect anymore. But “slewn” for strewn/slung sounds delightfully wrong.
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I’ve wondered if “slown†(and/or “slowenâ€) might be related to the near synonymy of phrases like “He’s slowin’ down†with “He’s slowed/n downâ€.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I think the similarities in sound and use between “slowin’ down” and “slowed down” could certainly help reinforce this, but I bet the main factor is the template offered by blown/known/thrown.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2009-01-31 14:11:39)
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I notice that the participles “blewn,” “knewn,” and “threwn” are all easy to find on the Web. For some reason, “knewn” also gets a lot more use as a past tense than the other two.
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I’ve always felt that “had snown” should be the past participle of snow (and “snew” should be the past tense). Snow, snew, had snown… Our minds want to find some consistency among verbs that end in ”-ow.” But I never would have thought of “had snewn,” I must admit.
Feeling quite combobulated.
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patschwieterman wrote:
I think the similarities in sound and use between “slowin’ down” and “slowed down” could certainly help reinforce this, but I bet the main factor is the template offered by blown/known/thrown.
I’m sure you’re right that the parallels with blown/known/thrown are crucial here. They (and other -n forms) would be what would make what was pronounced as slowÃn’ readily interpretable as slowen . “blowin’ in the wind†could work similarly, but less easily “knowin’†or “throwin’â€, since they are transitives.
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There are a number of verbs with both forms in use ( dived/dove, strived/strove/striven ), and it would be quite resonable to suppose that slow is another such.
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Adding to the mix, at least in the US, is the use, normal in some dialects, of preterite forms as participials and vice versa: “I seen him when he done itâ€, and “I should have knew he would’ve did thatâ€.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-01-31 20:49:21)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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