But the perfect participle (which is also the disused preterite) of /to sit/ has survived, as in "I have /sat/ there." /To speed/ and /to shoe/ have become regular, not only because of the general tendency toward the weak conjugation, but also for logical reasons. The prevalence of speed contests [Pg203] of various sorts, always to the intense interest of the proletariat, has brought such words as /speeder/, /speeding/, /speed-mania/, /speed-maniac/ and /speed-limit/ into daily use, and /speeded/ harmonizes with them better than the stronger /sped/. As for /shoed/, it merely reveals the virtual disappearance of the verb in its passive form. An American would never say that his wife was well /shod/; he would say that she wore good shoes. /To shoe/ suggests to him only the shoeing of animals, and so, by way of /shoeing/ and /horse-shoer/, he comes to /shoed/. His misuse of /to learn/ for /to teach/ is common to most of the English dialects. More peculiar to his speech is the use of /to leave/ for /to let/. Charters records it in "Washington /left/ them have it," and there are many examples of it in Lardner. /Spit/, in American, has become invariable; the old preterite, /spat/, has completely disappeared. But /slit/, which is now invariable in English (though it was strong in Old English and had both strong and weak preterites in Middle English), has become regular in American, as in "she /slitted/ her skirt." In studying the American verb, of course, it is necessary to remember always that it is in a state of transition, and that in many cases the manner of using it is not yet fixed. "The history of language," says Lounsbury, "when looked at from the purely grammatical point of view, is little else than the history of corruptions." What we have before us is a series of corruptions in active process, and while some of them have gone very far, others are just beginning. Thus it is not uncommon to find corrupt forms side by side with orthodox forms, or even two corrupt forms battling with each other. Lardner, in the case of /to throw/, hears "if he had /throwed/"; my own observation is that /threw/ is more often used in that situation. Again, he uses "the rottenest I ever seen /gave/"; my own belief is that /give/ is far more commonly used. The conjugation of /to give/, however, is yet very uncertain, and so Lardner may report accurately. I have heard "I /given/" and "I would of /gave/," but "I /give/" seems to be prevailing, and "I would of /give/" with it, thus reducing /to give/ to one invariable form, like those of /to cut/, /to hit/, /to put/, /to cost/, /to hurt/ and /to spit/. My table of verbs shows [Pg204] various other uncertainties and confusions. The preterite of /to hear/ is /heerd/; the perfect may be either /heerd/ or /heern/. That of /to do/ may be either /done/ or /did/, with the latter apparently prevailing; that of /to draw/ is /drew/ if the verb indicates to attract or to abstract and /drawed/ if it indicates to draw with a