From: Rick McCallister
Message: 58748
Date: 2008-05-21
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski"Beshitted" is more common but even that is rare.
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> >
> > On 2008-05-21 19:22, Rick McCallister wrote:
> >
> > > You occasionally hear shat and shatten but
> always in
> > > humorous contexts. Shit is the standard past
> > > participle.
> > > Canterbury Tales has "shiten" --
> > > And shame it is if a preest take keep,
> > > a shiten shepherd and a clene sheep. (505-506)
> >
> > Had it developed regularly, it would be
> shite/+shote/+shitten now (<
> > OE *sci:tan/*sc(e)a:t/*sciton/sciten, Class 1,
> like wri:tan, though
> > only the p.p. -sciten is directly attested).
> Middle English
> > generally preserved the expected reflexes. <Shite>
> is of course
> > still common regionally, at least in the British
> Isles, and the
> > pret./p.p. shit can also be regarded as
> historically "correct".
>
> Hm. Danish has 'skiden' "dirty", (obsol., now
> 'beskidt') ODa. skidhen,
> No. skitten;
> DEO calls it the ppp. of skide, although the ppp. of
> that today is
> 'skidt'. It's not just a denominal adj., like
> 'rotten' (DEO calls
> 'rådden' a ppp. too, of a root PGmc *reut- "tear up,
> dig up", but does
> the semantics fit?)? In the the transitive version
> of the Engl. verb,
> shouldn't the shitten object, not the beshatten one
> be qualified with
> the ppp-adj.?
>
> Torsten
>