Why do we use "spoke" instead of "speaked" as the past tense of "speak"? Or "flew" instead of "flied" for "fly"? What rule governs these as grammatically correct?
Responses (3)
I understand this. Do you know why exactly we use "spoke" instead of "speaked" though? Yes, it does sound unsuitable to us, but only because we actually know and understand English. Look at this question at a foreigner's point-of-view. Using "speaked" would be much easier to understand rather than "spoke" if learning English as a secondary language. I want to know what rule/law of the English language was followed when creating words such as spoke, grew, flew, ran, shot, rather than "speaked", "growed", "flied", "runned", "shooted" (respectively). Yes, your answers may just be that the ideas of the words themselves as being or sounding misplaced. However, I'm looking for a scholarly response as to why those who partook ("partaked" lol) in creating the basis of the English language decided to use these words rather than the ideas I have mentioned? Surely if they were to have accepted these ideas, you wouldn't think now that they sounded "weird" to speak.
My English teacher always used to say "English is a funny language and it's there to confuse us"
Many things about the English language are strange
I think they just did it to make it more confusing so that only smart people can know all the correct grammar
But don't take my word for it I am only 12