drowneded

Al   Fri Sep 16, 2005 12:45 am GMT
Is there such a word? I've heard many U.S. southerners say ''drowneded'' for the past tense of ''drown'' instead of ''drowned''.
Uriel   Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:35 am GMT
It exists in that dialect, but it's essentially a case of misunderstanding "drowned" to be the root word instead of "drown", and adding an extra -ed to make it comply with the basic English past-tense or adjective pattern. "Drowneded" would not be acceptable in most other dialects.

A similar mistake happens with "spay" and "spayed". People are unfamiliar with the root word "spay" and hear the past tense/adjectival form "spayed" as "spade", so they spontaneously manufacture the word "spaded", which is not correct.
Kirk   Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:18 am GMT
This kind of thing happens from time to time in language, where a word becomes reanalyzed, acquiring a new form it didn't traditionally have. For example, this happened to the word "pea" in English. It used to be that a single pea was a "pease" in English (in fact it was a collective noun like "wheat" and "corn" so it was always singular). However, over time it eventually became reanalyzed so that "pease" changed from being a singular collective to being a plural form (as "pease" sounds like "pea" + "s") and then of course by extension a new word, "pea," was formed, and is the normal word we use today.

It's similar to what has happened for people who say "drowneded." While "drowned" is usually the past tense of "drown," for some people it's been reanalyzed so that the "-ed" of "drowned" is not actually morphologically a past tense marker but an integral part of the word. Accordingly, the normal rules for past tense dictate that "-ed" be added on to the base form. Why this happened? For no reason any different than what happened to "pease" --> "pea." Language change can be funny.
Vytenis   Fri Sep 16, 2005 12:07 pm GMT
Here is the excerpt from JRR Tolkien's LOTR:

"...mr Drogo Baggins; there was never much to tell of him, till he was drownded" /Ham "Gaffer" Gamgee/
Vytenis   Fri Sep 16, 2005 12:13 pm GMT
Well, I dont know if dear old Gaffer can be regarded as the topmost authority on English language. But JRRT obviously new and used this form. So...
Tremmert   Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:16 pm GMT
David Copperfield's nanny also uses the word :)
Guest   Sat Sep 17, 2005 1:42 am GMT
Hmm drownded, sounds like drown-dead. That's a new one.
Gjones2   Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:03 am GMT
I think of the spelling as 'drownded'. Though I'm a Southerner, I don't use the word myself -- at least not seriously. When I was growing up, it was the kind of word that was pointed out to us as being a sign of ignorance. I don't mean to imply that every Southerner who uses it is ignorant, but as far as I know, it's perceived that way in most parts of the South, as well as the rest of the country.

For those familiar with the career of the actor Andy Griffith, I'll add that it's the kind of word that his character would have used in "No Time for Sergeants", in his Romeo and Juliet comic routine (preserved and distributed on an ancient medium called a "record"), and in the first year of his TV show, when he was trying to sound like a hick. I doubt that he would have used it seriously, though, when he became the straight man on that show and switched to a more standard Southern dialect (only slightly exaggerated).
Gjones2   Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:22 am GMT
For those who would prefer a Southern literary example, 'drownded' is the kind of word that Huckleberry Finn would use. A search of Twain's novel turns this up: "...Well, about this time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap...."
emily   Sat Jun 03, 2006 5:36 am GMT
has drownded. did drowned. am drowning. will drown.