What’s With All These Inflections and Irregular Verbs and Gerunds and Shit. Louis Shalako.

Poor old Louis testifying before the Crown Inquiry on Inflections, Gerunds and Dangling Participles for Fuck's Sakes.

Louis Shalako

What’s With All These Inflections and Irregular Verbs and Gerunds and Shit.

 

John had been saving his nickels and had finally gotted enough for—sorry, ladies and gentlemen, that should read gotten, which is an inflection or something or other. I don’t really even know—I dropped out of high school at the age of fifteen, and even then, no one cared.

It’s not like we cannot speak, or write or read and shit like that, eh.

English is an inflected language.

It was a bring-your-own-bottle sort of a party, and John brought beer. There was street racing, of the run-what-you-brung variety, an unofficial inflection if there ever was one.

There was no bringed in this context.

The dove (duv) dove (doav) down from the sun. The dove did not dived, which is how it is often used in the modern context, and this one definitely goes back some years. It is also clearly wrong, and yet once it’s in the popular lexicon, it would seem there is no going back.

Sing, sang sung. Song—

Choose, chose, chosen—or choosed, in our sick little modern world. There are all kinds of inflections. To seek, something is sought after. But now, we have to say seeked.

You can buy something, tomorrow you might say you bought something the day before.

In a world without inflections, this will now become buyed.

Rung, rang, rung—or should it be ringed. The boy ringed the doorbell and runned away, laugheding.

The sun shone down—this one’s a toughie, even big rock stars say ‘shown’, I will try to find the Canadian band, but the line is, ‘…where the sun had never shown (or shone)…’ and then there’s the bit about the rustic spoon. Okay, it’s April Wine, covering the song by Elton John—and his lyrics clearly use ‘shone’. So the singer for April Wine didn’t know how to pronounce what is a pretty simple word.

Okay, I am not exactly a grammar Nazi, grammar socialist maybe, for what that’s worth; but inflections have been useful enough for all these centuries, and doing away with them will have unknowed consequences.

Show me—you have been showed, rather than shown.

When all is said and didded, it will be difficult to say just who has wonned this rather peculiar linguistic battle. (Win, won).

Yes, when the battle is fighted, not fought, only then will the winneders (those who have winned) be declared.

Bite, to be bit (present tense), and to be bitten—but now, you have been bited.

Fight and fought, or should it be fighted.

“…I shooted the sheriff, but I did not shot the deputy…”

Has something been proven, (prooven), or has it been proved.

So, what is the provenance of that classic Ferrari, or perhaps we might say, ‘provedenance’.

(And just for the record, the plural of aircraft is aircraft. – ed.)

I don’t know about that, but hopefully I have maded or worse, maked, my point.

(And what the fuck is a participle anyways, and how is it that they can dangle, ladies and gentlemen. – ed.)

(So, what you are saiding, is that what I thought was a inflection, was or were or is, a fuckeding irregular verb. Louis).

(Yes. And the period should go inside, or outside of, the brackets. - ed.)

(So, what you are saying, is that my book is okay, you just don't want it.)

And.

English is one sick language indeed.

 

END

 

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Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen.

Notes. 

Inflections are a morphological process where the word changes spelling in relation to its meaning.

Irregular Verbs are the Whole Sing, Sang, Sung Thing. So Louis ain’t so smart after all. He mistook them for inflections, but just soldiered on with the story...for better or worse.

What is a Fucking Participle, and Why Does This Keep Getting Worse and Worse and Worser.

Of Course We Now Have to Ask What a Fucking Gerund Is.