Samrobb's Journal: Irregular conjugations

I was just reading through this story, and while I'm normally not a grammar Nazi, I felt the overwhelming need to explain the following over and over again as I read the comments about the article. Rather than make two dozen individual posts, I decided to vent my annoyance here...

• The past tense of pay is paid, not "payed".
• The past tends of spend is spent, not "spended".

There is a standard ./ objection to grammar corrections that goes something like "Hey, you know, not all /. posters are native English speakers!" Before you raise this argument, please go and read the comments attached to the article. The majority of the posts that used the incorrect past tense of these verbs came from individuals that are otherwise quite capable in their use of the English language (including English idioms). It baffles me how someone can properly spell "compliance" and yet not know the proper past tense for simple verbs that are used in everyday conversation.

I'll stop now. If I don't, I'll be back to lambasting people for using "rediculous" instead of "ridiculous"...

Your bio

[MarkusQ]

I'm a developer working for a company called TimeSys (www.timesys.com) located in Pittsburgh, PA. I'm a republican with libertarian leanings, a Christian, I think Windows is halfway decent technology with truly evil marketing, and I program in C++, all of which pretty much makes me atypical for the /. crowd.

You could add "and I can spell" and you wouldn't even have to change the punchline.

--MarkusQ

Re:Your bio

[Samrobb]

Heh. What realkly bugs me, though, is that I *can't* spell. I'm a lousy speller. Give me anything that I have even the slightest chance of screwing up - is it "seperated" or "separated" - and I'll manage to pick the wrong spelling 90% of the time.

So when *I* see something that even I think is obviously wrong, you know it's got to be something pretty flagrantly, horribly incorrect.