# EN: swelled / swollen



## WME

Hi

Can anybody please tell me in which context/according to which meaning the past participle of TO SWELL shall be SWOLLEN or SWELLED ?


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## moustic

For me :
swell (infinitif)  -  swelled (prétérit)  -  swollen (participe passé)

My fingers swell in hot weather.
His hand swelled when he trapped it.
His foot has swollen because he has been stung by a wasp.


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## OLN

Une bonne question pour le forum "English only". 

On parle bien des participes passés uniquement ? moustic n'a pas cité _swelled_ comme pp.

Intuitivement, je dirais que _swelled _est actif, _swollen_ passif. 

A quelle phrase particulière fais-tu référence, WME ?


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## Cardinasty

Un doit être AE et l'autre BE, honnêtement à mes yeux il n'y a que ça comme différence. Donc utilise les comme bon il te semble


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## OLN

Cardinasty said:


> l'Un doit être AE et l'autre BE, honnêtement à mes yeux il n'y a que ça comme différence.


Ah ? Lequel est lequel ?


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## doinel

L'OED précise que swelled comme participe passé est d'un usage rare.
Swollen s'emploie comme adjectif : a swollen ankle ou swollen head  
EG : The boy's eyes were swollen  up with tears
She suffered from a swollen head .


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## OLN

Quand je parlais de _passif_ et _actif_, je pensais à des exemples comme :
- _By the end of the day, the crowds had swelled to_...
- _His foot has swollen_ est typiquement passif.
Pour _swollen head_, je ne sais pas ; serait-ce là la différence avec _swelled __head_ ? 

Ce n'est qu'une intuition.

WME, peux-tu étayer ta question ?


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## WME

I'm really talking about the PAST PARTICIPLE here.
I have seen both SWELLED and SWOLLEN used in equally trustworthy sources.
It would be fine for me if they were equivalent, but there are some more complex cases ( hanged/hung for example...)
Je ne comprends pas trop la différence que tu indiques entre passif et actif, les deux exemples que tu cites sont à l'actif...


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## OLN

WME said:


> I have seen both SWELLED and SWOLLEN used in equally trustworthy sources.
> It would be fine for me if they were equivalent, but there are some more complex cases ( hanged/hung for example...)
> Je ne comprends pas trop la différence que tu indiques entre passif et actif, les deux exemples que tu cites sont à l'actif...


Pardon, encore une intuition difficile à partager.
Une foule grossit activement (les gens décident d'arriver en masse), un pied enfle passivement.

Comme tu as trouvé de source sûre que les deux sont interchangeables, qu'il s'agisse de fréquence d'emploi ou de formes AE/BE, à moins d'exemples concrets, oublie ça.


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## WME

Non, c'est une idée intéressante.
Et j'ai bien dit que si j'avais vu plusieurs sources utiliser et l un et l autre, je ne suis PAS sur que les deux sont équivalents.

natives pleaase.


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## Keith Bradford

moustic said:


> For me :
> swell (infinitif) - swelled (prétérit) - swollen (participe passé)...


 
For you and me too, but I'm afraid that the Shorter Oxford and Chambers dictionaries disagree with us, both allowing _swelled_ as an alternative ('weak') past participle.  

But I'm sure the other distinctions evoked in this thread are spurious - the meanings are identical.


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## clairet

If there is any difference (and I feel sure there are contexts where the past participles are interchangeable) it may be that "swollen" has a more definite sense that the increase in size referred to is in some sense too much (de trop?).  "Swelled" may be a bit more neutral.

"His stomach was swollen" (it had increased in size to a degree that it should not)
"His stomach had swelled" (it had increased but no judgement necessarily implied about the degree to which it had done so).

This is all quite subtle.  For example, you can say "His stomach had swelled a bit" (probably nothing to worry about) and "His stomach was a bit swollen" (suggestion that there might be something wrong).

It'll be interesting to see if other anglophones agree.


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## OLN

But is _was swollen_ still using the past part.?


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## clairet

OLN said:


> But is _was swollen_ still using the past part.?



Perhaps it's an adjective in that case (in both examples).  But I could have used "had swollen" in my first example - it's a past participle there isn't it (I'm not much of a grammarian).


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## WME

Okay, example.
Everybody seems to be focussing on body parts.
But what about :
Numbers had swelled/swollen threefold ?


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## clairet

WME said:


> Okay, example.
> Everybody seems to be focussing on body parts.
> But what about :
> Numbers had swelled/swollen threefold ?



Moving on from the problem of talking about "numbers" in this way without specifying the units (and it should then be number in the singular)....

The number of people present had swelled during the afternoon.
The number of people present had swollen during the afternoon.

I think both of these are possible and they are interchangeable (though again there is a possible sense of "swollen" of _de trop_).


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## CapnPrep

Here is a useful source for this sort of thing: MWDEU.



doinel said:


> L'OED précise que swelled comme participe passé est d'un usage rare.


Non, il précise « In pa. pple. _swollen_, *less usually* _swelled_ » (et cela vaut uniquement pour l'emploi attributif, pas pour le passé composé en _have_).


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## doinel

No  
Oxford English Dictionary ; pp  swollen (rarely swelled).
AE and BE as ever...


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## CapnPrep

doinel said:


> AE and BE as ever...


There may be a difference between American and British usage here, although nothing in the OED tells you that.

In the BNC: 16 (has|have|had|having) _swelled_ < 47 (has|have|had|having) *swollen*

In COCA: 242 [have] *swelled* > 127 [have] _swollen_


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