silly English language

[novapsyche]

bite : bitten :: smite : ...

That doesn't work.

Comments

[sttatus-quo.livejournal.com]

freeze: froze
Squeeze: not that either

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

That : those
hat : darn it. Try again!

Mouse : mice
House : oh fooey.

We'll come up with something sometime.

[o-lucky-man.livejournal.com]

I think it does work. Smitten is the past participle of smite. Or am I missing something?

[brendand.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it has a different relative meaning to smite than does bitten to bite.

[fadedpaladin.livejournal.com]

drink:drank:drunk
think:thank:thunk....
...mink:mank:monk...
smite:smat:smut?

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

Actually, the paradigm for smite is smite>smote>smote>smitten -- cf. write>wrote>wrote>written

Not that I'm being picky or anything... ;-)

[fadedpaladin.livejournal.com]

Bite>bote>boat>bitten? *impish grin*

[droid-1.livejournal.com]

Does so!
Smitten means struck, same as hit.

We just generally interpret it as "love struck."

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Was it that article that got you thinking about this? I thought it was really cool.

[o-lucky-man.livejournal.com]

It does?

If I'm overlooking the obvious please let me know, but according to the OED, the definition of "bite" is "The act or action of cutting, piercing, or wounding, with the teeth" and and that of "bitten" is "Cut into, pierced, or wounded with the teeth". While "smite's" definition is of "A stroke or heavy blow with a weapon, the hand, etc., or the sound made by this" and "smitten's" is "That has been smit; beaten, struck". I don't see a huge analogical difference. They seem rather apposite to me, in fact.

One may, of course, use "smitten" as a verb without an object, "smitten by affection," for example, but that doesn't negate the other uses of the word, right?

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess it does. But yes, "smitten" generally these days means "love struck," whereas if I mean to smite you, it probably has nothing to do with love.

So, the analogy technically works. I defer to you and o_lucky_man.

[droid-1.livejournal.com]

Smite is same as strike.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Yes. Never mind. :)

[brendand.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like smite and smitten are opposite. I always think of smite as a bad thing and being smitten as a good thing. While biting is fun but being bitten is annoying.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the article, but the article does relate.

I think I'll have to make a copy of it for my own records.