Weakening of the Strong Verb in English

The strong verb — wherein tense distinctions require change of a vowel — is declining in American English. German will retain it longer, I suspect, because the educational and reading level of those writing in German is, let us say, more uniformly high. Both languages exhibit strong and weak verbs.

I do hold to the principle that lexicography’s proper task is reportorial rather than prescriptive. The OED and Merriam-Webster exemplify it par excellence. However, when authors and proofreaders disregard longstanding grammar norms, it seems proper to complain.

Of course, there’s no overarching body to complain to. Publishers are smaller, operating on smaller budgets. Writers, and publishers as well, lately enjoy a much lower threshold of entry to mass distribution. Sadly, this threshold lowering extends to quality of language.

I thought of naming names, names of authors and publishers whose own more limited reading is betrayed in strong-weak verb mistakes and in mischoice of homonyms. That would be futile, since it may be impossible to say whether the fault lies in a publisher’s hasty transcription from an author’s verbal dictation or handwritten manuscript, and spell-check software is not capable of distinguishing homonym intent from context. I don’t see any impetus for solving that problem in commercial software.

Problems like this have been part of language evolution all along, and language maintains its essential role in our life nevertheless. Ad hoc solutions arise out of need. Those weak variants of strong verbs are quite annoying, but I won’t have to edure them for many more years.

-DZ