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"Crossed-referenced", "Crashed-landed", and other twice-inflected verbs

English Language & Usage Asked on March 7, 2021

For about a month now, I’ve been cataloging every compound verb I encounter that, for whatever reason, causes some people to inflect both of its components in the past tense (see title for examples). I was originally driven to do this after reading a discussion on the word "slept-walked" and an associated blog post, leaving me to wonder what other doubly-inflected past-tense verb forms I could find decently well-attested on the internet. For instance: while "kicked-started" (or "kickedstarted") is technically incorrect, quote-searching it on Google nevertheless reveals thousands of people who have been mysteriously compelled to add ‘-ed’ to both parts of the compound.

As should be obvious, this is all super interesting to me. So my question is as follows: Does any documentation currently exist for this phenomenon of over-inflected compounds in English? If nothing else, is there at least an agreed-upon term for what I’m describing? And lastly, I know it’s a long shot, but if anyone knows of a complete list of verbs fitting the criteria in question, I’d also love a link to that as well.

There are still loads of little things on the matter that I want to dig into, like if this can happen with other parts of speech, whether a similar thing is seen in other languages, how it might be explained from different linguistic standpoints, and so on. But overall, I really just want to learn more in general about this specific little quirk of English, as admittedly insignificant as it may be.

Any help, guidance, or insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks~!

2 Answers

If nothing else, is there at least an agreed-upon term for what I'm describing?

Yes, its called an error.

OED:

Etymology: Back-formation < sleep-walking n. and adj."

to kickstart (originally of motobikes)

Etymology: kick (n.) + to start (v)

Etymology: cross-reference v. < cross-reference n.

Cross- combination form 1. General uses in combination. a. From cross n.

Thus cross(n.) + reference(n.)

Answered by Greybeard on March 7, 2021

I have never heard about this odd behavior before. Inspired by your question, I looked into it, and found this, which you may find helpful. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4148

Answered by HellishHeat on March 7, 2021

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