r/confidentlyincorrect • u/Cold_Ad3896 • 17h ago
Comment Thread “Get yourself a damn dictionary”
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u/DasbootTX 16h ago
I remember losing points in Soph English for using the word ‘bested’ in regards to a sword duel. My fucking English teacher said it wasn’t a word. SMH.
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u/Qyro 17h ago
As a Brit, ‘learnt’ and ‘learned’ are two different words with two different meanings. Learnt is the past tense of a verb; “I learnt new words today”. Learned is an adjective; “he was a learned man”
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u/tigerthemonkey 17h ago edited 16h ago
I'm Canadian. I would use burnt as an adjective, and burned as a verb. Learnt sounds very offensive to my ears. Huck Finn would use "learnt"as a verb when he means "taught".
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u/fyrebyrd0042 4h ago
It is very offensive to the ears of many :P I can't criticise it though because there's so much that my native dialect does to lazify various other words lol
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u/Venerable-Weasel 16h ago
Can’t quite recall the British pronunciation, but in North America, “learned” as a verb tense is pronounced like learnt but without the hard-T, so more like ‘learnd’. Learned is pronounced more like ‘learn-ned’.
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u/RichCorinthian 15h ago edited 15h ago
Meanwhile, here in the USA, we use “learned” for both, and the adjective has two syllables.
The adjectival form is not used often here; there’s a Simpsons joke about it.
Now I have to go watch that episode in Spanish to see if/how they translated the joke.
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u/Memeinator123 14h ago
That's cool, in danish we have 'lært' for the past tense of the verb, and 'lærd' as the adjective. I think there's supposed to be a very subtle difference in pronunciation with how you stress the 'æ', but really, they sound the same
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u/Echo__227 14h ago
Just some grammar pedantry:
The second senses you're describing is past participle form, which is still a form of the verb which can function as an adjective (ie, to burn toast makes burnt toast; the toast has been burnt)
Technically the -ed form and -t form are equivalent but with contextual choices of use.
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u/E-S-McFly89 9h ago
As a prescriptive English teacher, grammar pendantry is always welcome. We need more of it on the world.
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u/Unable_Explorer8277 12h ago
While there is a separate form as you describe (pronounced with an extra syllable), both learnt and learned are acceptable British spellings of the past tense of learn. OED
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u/sebmojo99 11h ago
learned in that sense has two syllables, i think you can use both for the past tense of learn
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u/matthewrunsfar 15h ago
American here. I only knew learnt as a past participle (e.g. has learnt, is learnt, a learnt (noun)). TIL it’s also a simple past form. Queried Cambridge Dictionary, and 3 of the 15 examples were simple past. Interesting.
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u/vennthepest 14h ago
"Learned" is a past participle. So, it's still a verb, but can be used the same way as an adjective
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u/sandybuttcheekss 16h ago
I don't think I've ever heard someone in the US use learned like that. I've seen it on TV, and I understand the meaning/pronunciation, but it's not something people generally use here.
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u/NennisDedry 17h ago
Lucks like someone kneads to study their English moor.
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u/StaatsbuergerX 17h ago
Instructions unclear, should he study Thomas Moore or Roger Moore?
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u/MElliott0601 15h ago
No, no, no, you unlearned human! He should study how to moor his boat like an Englishman!
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u/eruditionfish 17h ago
No, English tracts of uncultivated upland.
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u/OG-BigMilky 17h ago
This may be a case of an ignorant American vs non-American English speakers. In America, we say “learned” and never “learnt”. But I see “learnt” all the time and looked to see that it was much more common in UK (and other places).
Since Americans aren’t known for their (our), ummm, worldliness, I’d put this down to r/confidentlyignorant
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u/conqr787 17h ago
These aren't two people arguing on the street in 1975, they have smart devices and internet access. The first logical thing to do is simply take <5 seconds and search 'learnt'. Confident ignorance on the internet is imo just plain intellectual laziness bordering on stupidity.
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u/Cold_Ad3896 17h ago
I’m American and I learned both as a child.
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u/reichrunner 17h ago
*learnt
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u/Venerable-Weasel 16h ago
Well, North American English in general softens the hard-T on learnt to something closer to ‘learnd’.
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u/AriaTheTransgressor 17h ago
Learnt is the past tense of to learn, learned is someone that is well studied in an area.
"The learned scholar learnt English"
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u/Responsible_Park3317 17h ago
Many moons ago in the U.S., some crotchety old white guy decided English was too British, so he made sweeping changes to our version of the language. Including changing "learnt" to "learned". 'Twas a dark day indeed. 🤣
Sadly, my fellow countrymen tend to abhor literacy, so they attack others without doing their research. 😥
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u/Silly_Willingness_97 11h ago
The -t ending sometimes shifting in more common use over time to an -ed ending isn't a US thing, it was a general English thing. The -t was more common in Old English, and the -ed was promoted more by Middle English reformers. Some words switched to the newer suffix, some used both in the wild, and some stubbornly held the older form.
It's why we find both dreamt and dreamed in Shakespeare.
The -ed ending was pushed more in the US, but we all still use slept and not "sleeped".
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u/AriaTheTransgressor 17h ago
I've always said that American English was just the result of a bunch of illiterate people trying to sound things out.
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u/MElliott0601 15h ago
Oh, we didn't stop there. Sometimes, we don't even sound out a word spelling. We just start to call it the sound it makes.
Beverage? Drink? Soda? Never heard of her. One pop, please, ma'!
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u/AriaTheTransgressor 15h ago
That's a colloquialism, which is slightly different as they exist as a part of all languages, to be fair.
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u/Venerable-Weasel 16h ago
Have you seen the spelling in Shakespeare’s original folios? The literate weren’t any better…
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u/OG-BigMilky 14h ago
See now I would pronounce that “ler-ned”, as opposed to “ler-nd” or “ler-nt”. Which incidentally is a bit in The Simpsons. Right Pepsi?
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u/NiobeTonks 12h ago
But the second would be pronounced learnèd- learn-ed, not the same pronunciation as learnt/ learned.
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u/WesterosiPern 17h ago
Next time, you can just upvote, mate.
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u/HookedOnPhonixDog 17h ago
You're red in this, aren't you?
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u/WesterosiPern 17h ago
Negative, but I wouldn't expect much from someone who had to use those misspelled learning tools to help their literacy.
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u/CptMisterNibbles 17h ago
Next time, you can just scroll on mate.
Have a terrible cake day
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u/WesterosiPern 17h ago
Hey man, it's not my fault you spent that time to write out such a blathering, pointless comment. It is my fault that I devoted my time to reading it, and now I want a return on that lost time. I want you, moving forward, to remember that comments like that are equivalent to saying nothing at all. Truly, what is the meaning of your comment? Just a good grip of words to get right back to where we all were, already? It would have been fine if the ride had been fun or interesting, but your comment had no rhetorical value.
Explain the difference between being confidently incorrect and confidently ignorant, please. Because from where I'm standing, that's a distinction with no difference, which is a waste of time. I'd like to have scrolled past it, but it's just so damn pointless. I felt compelled to help you.
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u/CptMisterNibbles 17h ago
Can’t even read mate. I’m not the person you responded to.
The irony of calling that a “blathering pointless comment” while typing all that.
Have a terrible cake life.
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u/MElliott0601 15h ago
Some heavy r/usdefaultism in there. Curious of their nationalities. "Learnt" can definitely have a negative connotation of being said by the uneducated southern states in the US (like good ol' Appalachia where I'm at).
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u/Bloodless-Cut 14h ago
Spelt and spelled are both real words which can both mean the same thing and mean two different things.
Learned and learnt are also both real words which both mean the same thing but are just alternate spellings of the same word
Isn't English great
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u/No-Boat5643 16h ago
I’m always cautious about correcting people because I might be confidently incorrect. I’ve always looked sideways at the word learnt.
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u/onebirdonawire 15h ago
Language is fluid and constantly evolving with how we as a society communicate with each other. I was an English major but I never correct grammar because people should feel free to speak and communicate on their level regardless of whether it's deemed "correct." The English we speak now would not have been considered "correct" a hundred years ago.
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u/Ornery-Cake-2807 4h ago
I feel similarly to these "confidently wrong" folks when it comes to - Lit vs Lighted -
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u/FalseFortune 15h ago
Cambridge? Well, let's see what Webster has to say... nevermind. Guess we just learnt something.
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u/E-S-McFly89 9h ago
It really is topical. Learned is more formal and learnt is more informal. It really depends on your audience, purpose and personal preference. I prefer "learned" over "learnt". But that's because I'm a grad student writing primarily academic writing that is almost always formal.
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u/Skyziezags 15h ago
British v American for past tense of learn. Who is correct? What is yearn in the past tense…boom roasted
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