Talk:Strong verbs

The Conjugation of "to come"

Hey, I was just wondering.

In the article, you listed "to come" as being a class 4 verb that survived. However, Etymonline, in its article therefor, says:

"Modern past tense form came is Middle English, probably from Old Norse kvam, replacing Old English cuom."

Additionally, it also says:

"The substitution of Middle English -o- for Old English -u- before -m-, -n-, or -r- was a scribal habit before minims to avoid misreading the letters in the old style handwriting, which jammed them together. The practice similarly transformed some, monk, tongue, worm."

This makes me wonder. Without Norse influënce and the scribal habit, wouldn't "to come" be conjugated more like "cum, coom, have cummen"?

Thank you in advance. --140.213.57.209 10:09, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I've looked into it, and this book argues against attributing came to Norse influence. It's not exactly certain whence the a form came, but the Middle English Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary attribute it to analogy with Class 4 and 5 verbs. And according to the OED, the earliest attestation of the a form is in a late Old English Kentish source, which further gainsays the theory that came had a Norse source. --AtterCleanser44 (talk) 20:18, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, spelling come with o was a later scribal practice, since there was an aversion to writing u before certain letters such as m. I'm not sure whether that was due to any particular foreign influence, but yes, if that practice had not been used, then we might spell the word as cum today. --AtterCleanser44 (talk) 20:33, 27 May 2021 (UTC)