Talk:slayed

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

There seems to be different opinions on whether the regular inflection "slayed" exists. We are having the same discussion on sv:wikt; could someone please advise us? \Mike 10:19, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to point out that in “slay”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC. it was not mentioned, whence follows that it is either a novelty or a hoax. But I am eager to hearken unto the opinion of some native speaker as well. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 10:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

One source which has been mentioned is this. Also, our own Appendix:English irregular verbs mentions it. \Mike 10:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Books have 527 hits for "he slayed", and having looked at a few of the first they refer to the "kill" sense. --Duncan 11:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

• It's not in the OED, which suggests that the weak inflection is fairly rare, or fairly new. It's interesting, and the sort of thing Wiktionary should have a page on if we can find some nice citations for it...I don't think it's been well documented in any other dictionaries. The practice of strong verbs becoming weak is, of course, extremely common in English. Ƿidsiþ 11:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Has attracted coverage from various usage authorities, of which the MWDEU is (as usual) the most thoughtful and thorough.[1] Basically, it is most common with the quasi-showbiz sense ("he slayed 'em tonight!"), which we didn't have until just now. Have added usage note to this effect; please improve & expand. -- Visviva 11:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

(Man, I love that book. Ƿidsiþ 11:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC))

I am against everything which is absent from the OED. I would not add Template:rfd on the entry, but if some native speaker does, he can reckon with my support. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 11:33, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It should go without saying that the OED does not have an entry for "slayed", as like every dictionary other than Wiktionary they do not have entries for mere inflected forms. On the other hand they do have one quote that uses "slayed", dated 1927 under the showbiz sense (5b). -- Visviva 11:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Wellaway... But since this form is not mentioned in the caption next to slain, we could probably tag it is proscribed. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 11:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

A review of US usage 2000-2009 in COCA suggests that "slayed" is increasing in popularity, but remains less common than "slew". It is very rare in UK usage (BNC). DCDuring TALK 13:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

See "slain." -VitaminN