# Past tense of "Swing"



## Sarasaki

According to me, the past tense of swing is "swung" but my daughter's teacher told her its "swang"  

Can anyone out there tell me which is correct? "Swang" is a bit archaic dont you think?

Thanks in advance!


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## stezza

swing swang swung

There seems to be a tendency in contemporary English (particularly in AE) to eschew the simple past form and adopt instead the participial form as the simple past.

Take for example the name of the movie: _Honey, I shrunk the kids_, where _shrunk_ (the participial form) has taken the place of _shrank_ (the simple past form).


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## Sarasaki

stezza said:


> swing swang swung
> 
> There seems to be a tendency in contemporary English (particularly in AE) to eschew the simple past form and adopt instead the participial form as the simple past.
> 
> Take for example the name of the movie: _Honey, I shrunk the kids_, where _shrunk_ (the participial form) has taken the place of _shrank_ (the simple past form).


 
Thanks a million for your quick reply. But I must admit that I cannot find any reference to "swang" anywhere on the net or in my dictionary at home. Is this "adoption of participial form" a AE thing only? We in India owe our English to the British....so is there a BE point of view on this one?

And I continue to "swing" between "swang" and "swung".....Help!!!!


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## zonebreaker

The past tense of swing is swung, as is the past participle.


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## natkretep

I'd never used _swang _before so was surprised to see it mentioned. But you are right. There is no _swang_, according to the Cobuild Dictionary. It is not standard AE either: no _swang _in the Websters.


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## El escoces

http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/SWING According to this - admittedly not terribly authoritative - swang is an option, and one I admit to using from time to time. "I swang the bat as hard as I could"; "The monkey swang from the branch". But I would also use "swung", both in place of "swang", and obviously in passive voice ("the bat was swung with considerable force" and so on).


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## JulianStuart

Even if there were a "swang" version, it seems so rarely used as to be a prime candidate for "regularization" because it doesn't "sound right"!
Here is a discussion of how irregular verbs change over time.  The abstract contains the following "We study how the rate of regularization depends on the frequency of word usage. The half-life of an irregular verb scales as the square root of its usage frequency: a verb that is 100 times less frequent regularizes 10 times as fast. Our study provides a quantitative analysis of the regularization process by which ancestral forms gradually yield to an emerging linguistic rule."


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## El escoces

In a Google search I did however find the New York Observor using the expression "This is why estimates of Mr Ferrer's support have swang wildly from poll to poll.." which I think is just plain wrong!  There is no doubt that "swung" is the correct participle, regardless of your view on the other point.


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## El escoces

JulianStuart said:


> Even if there were a "swang" version, it seems so rarely used as to be a prime candidate for "regularization" because it doesn't "sound right"!
> Here is a discussion of how irregular verbs change over time. The abstract contains the following "We study how the rate of regularization depends on the frequency of word usage. The half-life of an irregular verb scales as the square root of its usage frequency: a verb that is 100 times less frequent regularizes 10 times as fast. Our study provides a quantitative analysis of the regularization process by which ancestral forms gradually yield to an emerging linguistic rule."


 
It's all relative of course - if you use "swang", it won't sound particularly strange; if you don't normally use it, it will probably sound odd.  I accept the role of one's "ear" in helping to determine whether something is right or wrong, but it's not infallible.


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## losilmer

Infinitive -- *to swing  * 

Past tense -- *swung* (* & swang*, chiefly in Scotland and North of England)  

Past participle --  *swung. *


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## natkretep

Many thanks, Julian. I didn't know _Nature _would be interested in language!

(Also fascinated by your native language as 'English & American English'.)


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## tannen2004

Just another contribution, the Oxford English Dictionary gives swang as the past tense of swing but with the note "rarely", preferring swung.


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## El escoces

Posting content here suggests it's the reverse, losilmer: swung, except possibly swang in Scotland/North of England! (Where's Ewie Mod when you need a N of E opinion?)


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## GreenWhiteBlue

I have never heard anyone say "swang" in my life.  If I did ever hear it used by someone who was from the same part of the English-speaking world as myself, it I would find the usage very odd, and less than educated, literary usage


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## El escoces

So: swung (rarely, swang - in Scotland possibly?)

Rare = precious, exceptional.  Outstanding.  Scotland.   (OK, I'll stop...)


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## jimreilly

I wonder if "swang" is a regional variant (where?) or if it is a form that crept into English usage during years of German immigration? My Dad's mom's family, German immigrants, used it, I think, and there were often "Germanisms" in their speech. Someone who knows about such things--does that make any sense?


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## El escoces

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> I have never heard anyone say "swang" in my life. If I did ever hear it used by someone who was from the same part of the English-speaking world as myself, it I would find the usage very odd, and less than educated, literary usage


 
Hmph.

"And, shining with a gloom, the water grey
Swang in its moon-taught way."

(Elizabeth Barratt Browning, A Sea-Side Walk)

Less than educated, literary usage?


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## losilmer

El escoces said:


> Posting content here suggests it's the reverse, losilmer: swung, except possibly swang in Scotland/North of England! (Where's Ewie Mod when you need a N of E opinion?)



Right, escoces.   
Corrected.  Thanks.

So,           - to swing 
Past tense - swung  (swang, in Scotland and North England)
Past part.  - swung.


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## JulianStuart

> I accept the role of one's "ear" in helping to determine whether something is right or wrong, but it's not infallible.


I think the Nature paper made a quantitative estimate of the fallibility of the speakers as a whole group. 




natkretep said:


> Many thanks, Julian. I didn't know _Nature _would be interested in language!
> 
> (Also fascinated by your native language as 'English & American English'.)


I was surprised too that Nature would accept that paper, but it seems like solid application of scientific method to language, which is something found in nature.  I used to subscribe when I was in Biotech. for science news.


I grew up in England and moved to the US.  Sorry, but I just couldn't bring myself to declare "English English & American English"  British English didn't fit either (what is that anyway?)


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## JulianStuart

I had assumed from the beginning of this that it was a "German" verb that came into "English" as a "regular -i-, -a-, -u-" vowel change type verb (sing, sink, swim, ring etc there are quite a few - at one time I was fluent in German). Hence the interest in how/why it will get "regularized" through lack of use to the -i-, -u-, -u- form that is developing in its place.


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## Forero

_Swung_ is correct, at least for recent times.  Some more English verbs with the same pattern:
_
wring_ - _wrung_ - _wrung_.
_string_ - _strung_ - _strung_.
_spin_ - _spun_ - _spun_.

I wish I knew what makes particular verbs change patterns while others stay the same.


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## Aardvark01

Well I'm in the West Midlands of England and I'm accustomed to hearing *swang* used in Birmingham, Black Country and Shropshire accents:

She swang the car around
He swang the bat
I swang it out with the rubbish


This is the way me family and me friends talk. It's yow lot 's ca'n talk propper.


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## kalamazoo

Where was Elizabth BB from originally? Perhaps her local speech pattern included "swang."  Other than that, I would be very surprised to hear "swang" used by an educated person.  Although I must admit that most English speakers would readily understand what was meant anyway.


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## Aardvark01

JulianStuart said:


> Even if there were a "swang" version, it seems so rarely used as to be a prime candidate for "regularization" because it doesn't "sound right"!...


Not so rare to my ears mate
I grew up with 'swang' in common and literary usage. 


from *Wordsworth's* _'On the Power of Sound'_:
- and Silenus swang
This way and that, with wild flowers crowned.


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## Ivo2008

Aardvark01 said:


> Well I'm in the West Midlands of England and I'm accustomed to hearing *swang* used in Birmingham, Black Country and Shropshire accents:
> 
> She swang the car around
> He swang the bat
> I swang it out with the rubbish
> 
> 
> This is the way me family and me friends talk. It's yow lot 's ca'n talk propper.



In that context is the guy driving his car from side to side in this song, please?

“They see me rollin'
They hatin 
patrollin and tryna catch me ridin dirty
Tryna catch me ridin dirty (*4X*)
My music so loud I'm *swangin*
They hopin' that they gone catch me ridin dirty
Tryna catch me ridin dirty”

Shoudn't he say "I am swinging"?


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## Aardvark01

Ivo2008 said:


> In that context is the guy driving his car from side to side in this song, please?
> 
> “They see me rollin'
> They hatin
> patrollin and tryna catch me ridin dirty
> Tryna catch me ridin dirty (*4X*)
> My music so loud I'm *swangin*
> They hopin' that they gone catch me ridin dirty
> Tryna catch me ridin dirty”
> 
> Shoudn't he say "I am swinging"?


Because this is an example of a local dialect (not mine, it sounds Jamaican to me) it is up to the community which speaks this way to decide what is 'correct'. It is clear that it is a variant of 'swinging', with the meaning of driving side to side of the road.

In the context I used:
He swang the car 'round

it means that the car was facing one direction and did a single U turn to face the opposite direction.

We might also say that someone *swang by*, idiomatically meaning:
a brief visit by someone who was in the area


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## Ivo2008

Thank you for this clarification, Aardvark01!


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## ewie

El escoces said:


> (Where's Ewie Mod when you need a N of E opinion?)


I'm touched, Scottie, really I am.
Like the Aardvark I'm quite used to hearing _swang_.  I _think_ I use _swung _and _swang_ interchangeably/randomly for the past tense, but always _swung_ for the past participle.  I'll try and remember to listen up next time I say it


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## Brioche

jimreilly said:


> I wonder if "swang" is a regional variant (where?) or if it is a form that crept into English usage during years of German immigration? My Dad's mom's family, German immigrants, used it, I think, and there were often "Germanisms" in their speech. Someone who knows about such things--does that make any sense?



Swang is an old form.

It has not changed thanks to modern German influence.

Here's a bit from a Wordsworth poem, composed about 1791

_A sound of chains along the desert rang;
He looked, and saw upon a gibbet high
A human body that in irons *swang*,
Uplifted by the tempest whirling by;
And, hovering, round it often did a raven fly.
_


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## El escoces

So now we have Wordsworth, on top of Elizabeth Barratt Browning, using swang - not yesterday, admittedly - and the majority of native-British English speakers contributing to this thread expressing either use of or familiarity with, the "swang" form of the past tense - which makes the repeated references from our friends across the pond to this usage as "uneducated" rather regrettable.  OED does not say "past tense swung, sometimes (incorrectly) swang", so can we please have some acceptance by US English speakers that they have been persuaded that, in other parts of the world, "swang" is alive, kicking and perfectly proper!


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## Forero

_Swing_ is uncommon in past tense where I live. Some people's _swing_ sounds like other people's _swang_ (Southern twang), so using _swung_ for past tense assures that it won't be confused with present tense.  (I would not expect a Southern twang from Browning or Wordsworth, so the more conservative _swang_ makes sense.)

There may be a slight difference in usage between _swang_ and _swung_ where both are common.  If I were outside the South, I might use _swung_ for a leisurely turn on playground equipment but _swang_ for a sudden turn in an automobile.  Does that make sense?


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## toshev

I'm used to 'swang'.


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## ewie

Forero said:


> Does that make sense?


Yes, sort of ~ _swang_ does have a kind of abrupt feel to it, whereas _swung_ sounds more leisurely.  _(He swung by the store_ sounds ... erm ... right.)

(For a fraction of a second you had me worried there, Forero: I thought you were saying that some people used _twang_ for the past tense of _swing_)


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## JulianStuart

Forero said:


> _Swung_ is correct, at least for recent times.  Some more English verbs with the same pattern:
> _
> wring_ - _wrung_ - _wrung_.
> _string_ - _strung_ - _strung_.
> _spin_ - _spun_ - _spun_.
> 
> I wish I knew what makes particular verbs change patterns while others stay the same.


Forero, Unfortunately one needs a subscription to obtain the full article in the Nature paper to whose abstract I provided a link.  Their conclusion was that it is simply decreasing usage that causes the changes in this specific kind of situation.  The more it is used, the less likely it is to change!


Aardvark01 said:


> Not so rare to my ears mate
> I grew up with 'swang' in common and literary usage.
> 
> from *Wordsworth's* _'On the Power of Sound'_:
> - and Silenus swang
> This way and that, with wild flowers crowned.


Aardvaark, No value judgement implied and no aspersions on your hearing either   I think the other responses in the thread are sufficient to support the case that in many places it is now rare.  That does not mean, clearly, that it is uniformly rare everywhere...  As I type this, I have just noticed the little red dotted underlines suggesting an incorrect spelling built into this board's text windows - it is underlining swang and not swung.  It also underlines judgement  so make of that what you will!



Brioche said:


> Swang is an old form.
> 
> It has not changed thanks to modern German influence.


It would be the trend to "regularization" (as defined in the Nature paper referenced in my first post in this thread) _away from _ the original German that would cause a change from "I swang" to "I swung"



El escoces said:


> So now we have Wordsworth, on top of Elizabeth Barratt Browning, using swang - not yesterday, admittedly - and the majority of native-British English speakers contributing to this thread expressing either use of or familiarity with, the "swang" form of the past tense - which makes the repeated references from our friends across the pond to this usage as "uneducated" rather regrettable.  OED does not say "past tense swung, sometimes (incorrectly) swang", so can we please have some acceptance by US English speakers that they have been persuaded that, in other parts of the world, "swang" is alive, kicking and perfectly proper!



I believe GWB is the only one and it was only once that I can find.

There is clearly a group or groups of people for whom swang is current and in continued use (although I don't use "swung" that often myself so even the possibility of either would be classified as "rare"!  I suspect if it came down to it, I personally would find either to be a little strange  ) - I don't think that was in question. I have to relate that when the film came out "Honey I shrunk the kids" I did groan, and still do when I hear "The ship sunk quickly" or similar examples of this so-called "regularization".  I don't condone or judge the trend, just acknowledge that these things happen (and the paper shows one reason why) but do subscribe to the saying I first read from W. Safire : "When enough of us are wrong, we're right" - but the "tipping point" happens at different times in different areas.


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## Grekh

I always was taught at school the correct form was "swang". It's good to know that it's not so common anymore and that you all prefer using "swung".


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## JulianStuart

Grekh said:


> I always was taught at school the correct form was "swang". It's good to know that it's not so common anymore and that you *all *prefer using "swung".



Some, but not all!
If you visit certain parts of the world, you will find "swang" in full swing


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## Aardvark01

JulianStuart said:


> Aardvaark, No value judgement implied and no aspersions on your hearing either  I think the other responses in the thread are sufficient to support the case that in many places it is now rare. That does not mean, clearly, that it is uniformly rare everywhere... As I type this, I have just noticed the little red dotted underlines suggesting an incorrect spelling built into this board's text windows - it is underlining swang and not swung. It also underlines judgement  so make of that what you will!...


 
I realise that certain dictionaries and spell checks omit 'swang'. That merely tells me they are *not comprehensive* and it is to be expected.

You may not have intended any aspersion, but reading your verb 'regularisation' in association with 'swang' suggests (whatever its special meaning) an intentional removal... to which I say: "grrrrr!" (probably not in spell check either but you get the idea)


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## kalamazoo

It's nice to have examples from Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but can anyone tell me (and please try to avoid snotty remarks about the pond, thanks) whether "swang" is currently normal usage in the UK in writing by educated people? I would be quite startled to see it in my morning newspaper here and would think it was an error.


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## JamesM

I can imagine using it.  I might have picked it up as a boy from my English relatives, but it doesn't sound horribly odd to me.

"He swang out over the river on a rope and dropped in."

As for UK examples, here are a few:

BBC Sports
As if by magic, the ball swang around sharply to the left, around the bewildered French wall and into the back of the net, leaving the baffled Fabien Barthez standing, as that was all he could do.

BBC Weather
Here on the forward side of the ridge building in the winds swang around to be northerly and this pulled in enough cloud in from the North Sea to squeeze out a few drops of rain on and off.


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## Loob

kalamazoo said:


> It's nice to have examples from Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but can anyone tell me (and please try to avoid snotty remarks about the pond, thanks) whether "swang" is currently normal usage in the UK in writing by educated people? I would be quite startled to see it in my morning newspaper here and would think it was an error.


No, I'd say that the standard BrE past tense of "swing" would be "swung"


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## JamesM

Forero said:


> _Swung_ is correct, at least for recent times. Some more English verbs with the same pattern:
> 
> _wring_ - _wrung_ - _wrung_.


 
Hmm... this one would also be "wrang" for me: "She wrang out the towel with both hands." "She soaked a washcloth in cool water, wrang it out, and placed it on the patient's forehead."

Maybe I have some quirks in this area.


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## Broccolicious

I agree with Loob, and when I saw JamesM's BBC quotes I literally made this face: 

It would definitely be 'swung' for me. Not that I do, you understand...


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## Aardvark01

kalamazoo said:


> It's nice to have examples from Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but can anyone tell me (and please try to avoid snotty remarks about the pond, thanks) whether "swang" is currently normal usage in the UK in writing by educated people? I would be quite startled to see it in my morning newspaper here and would think it was an error.


 
Murray Fed: what a screamer
BBC Sport, UK - Nov 14, 2008
It *swang* from one side to the other with both players giving it their all.

X Factor Scott to bounce back
Manchester Online, UK - Oct 26, 2008
“I honestly don’t think that the story *swang* it for him.

I've never heard 'the pond' used in a snotty way, only a humourous way. What does sound snotty is the idea that 'swang' is a sign of being uneducated, an assertion you have repeated in this thread with scant regard for those of us who have stated we do use it.


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## El escoces

And I'm betting that Aardvark is at least educated, if not, like me, highly educated, and entirely comfortable with "swang".

JamesM, I agree completely - wrung seems, to me (because it's not the usage I am familiar with) quite wrong as the past tense of wring.

It's also misleading to focus on what you might read in your morning paper (wherever that might be), since language use is much wider than journalistic writing, and in particular the spoken word admits of much more flexibility than the press, where house styles presumably govern.


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## JulianStuart

Aardvark01 said:


> I realise that certain dictionaries and spell checks omit 'swang'. That merely tells me they are *not comprehensive* and it is to be expected.
> 
> You may not have intended any aspersion, but reading your verb 'regularisation' in association with 'swang' suggests (whatever its special meaning) an intentional removal... to which I say: "grrrrr!" (probably not in spell check either but you get the idea)



I now understand the idea you are trying to convey but it is misdirected.

I think you'll see _my_ use of the word (with OED-preferred Z  ) was firmly in quotation marks because it was the word used by the learned (or at least peer-reviewed) authors of the article from the renowned British journal Nature to which I provided a link.  You may not like the term they have chosen to describe the phenomenon we are witnessing, but one can make a fair case that language(s) evolve through a series of, among other things, (mis)appropriation of foreign words and perpetuation of errors. The conversion of swang to the supposedly more "regular" swung by what may well be a majority of English speakers, is an example of the phenomenon they studied: the subconscious feeling that languages have "rules" and some "irregular-sounding" things need to be corrected.  It would be nice to be able to post a copy of the full article but it is not in the public domain (only the abstract).  Please feel free to direct the grrrrr at the authors - or whomever they cite as the originators of the term.

As ever, with cordial greetings


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## Loob

Aardvark01 said:


> Murray Fed: what a screamer
> BBC Sport, UK - Nov 14, 2008
> It *swang* from one side to the other with both players giving it their all.
> 
> X Factor Scott to bounce back
> Manchester Online, UK - Oct 26, 2008
> “I honestly don’t think that the story *swang* it for him.
> 
> I've never heard 'the pond' used in a snotty way, only a humourous way. What does sound snotty is the idea that 'swang' is a sign of being uneducated, an assertion you have repeated in this thread with scant regard for those of us who have stated we do use it.


Who said "swang" was uneducated? 

We all have our own variants of English.

I happen to use "swung" as the past tense of "swing".  I also think that "swung" is the standard English past tense of "swing".

But I have absolutely no views as to the 'educational level' of those who prefer "swang".  Varietal preference, to me, has little or nothing to do with level of education.


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## JulianStuart

Loob said:


> Who said "swang" was uneducated?
> 
> We all have our own variants of English.
> 
> ...
> 
> But I have absolutely no views as to the 'educational level' of those who prefer "swang".  Varietal preference, to me, has little or nothing to do with level of education.



Just in case my position on this wasn't clear from my posts : What she said!


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## ewie

When it comes to irregular past tenses, for me _wrung_ sounds wronger than _wrang._


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## kalamazoo

I would never have guessed that "swang" was used in the UK today. In the US, I can't really imagine an educated AE speaker using it. Sorry for any misunderstandings.


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## Loob

ewie said:


> When it comes to irregular past tenses, for me _wrung_ sounds wronger than _wrang._


And for me - is this off-topic? - "wrang" sounds more wrong than "wrung"...


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## jimreilly

Brioche said:


> Swang is an old form.
> 
> It has not changed thanks to modern German influence.
> 
> Here's a bit from a Wordsworth poem, composed about 1791


 
Thanks, Brioche, that clear answer helps. But it also might be that German influence has reinforced the pre-existing form in English, at least among some groups, as might have other forms from other languages.


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## JamesM

kalamazoo said:


> I would never have guessed that "swang" was used in the UK today. In the US, I can't really imagine an educated AE speaker using it. Sorry for any misunderstandings.


 
I am not sure what qualifies as "educated AE speaker", but I did graduate cum laude from college here in the good ol' U.S. of A. I is not totally igorant.  Would you be willing to stretch your imagination a bit?


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## JulianStuart

jimreilly said:


> Thanks, Brioche, that clear answer helps. But it also might be that German influence has reinforced the pre-existing form in English, at least among some groups, as might have other forms from other languages.



Am I missing a point here?  The word came from German a long time ago (according to my  OEDs ) with a structure like many other such verbs -i-, -a-, and -u-, and it hasn't changed (not yet everywhere, anyway), so what influence is being referred to?


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## kalamazoo

Well, my husband said he had heard "swang" although he didn't use it himself, and he went to a pretty good college, so I guess I am completely wrong about this.


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## Aardvark01

kalamazoo said:


> Well, my husband said he had heard "swang" although he didn't use it himself, and he went to a pretty good college, so I guess I am completely wrong about this.


Kalamazoo,
You aren't completely wrong. I think what you mean to say is that 'swang' is the sort of word you would not expect to hear in *educated circles*. 
While there are many words I would not have used in my BA thesis I either never stopped or else 'reverted' to using them in my local, native accent, education notwithstanding.
To say I'm not an *educated person* because I use 'swang' is, at best, to be wide of the mark. At worst it's rather insulting
Regards,
Dave


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## mplsray

Aardvark01 said:


> Kalamazoo,
> You aren't completely wrong. I think what you mean to say is that 'swang' is the sort of word you would not expect to hear in *educated circles*.
> While there are many words I would not have used in my BA thesis I either never stopped or else 'reverted' to using them in my local, native accent, education notwithstanding.
> To say I'm not an *educated person* because I use 'swang' is, at best, to be wide of the mark. At worst it's rather insulting
> Regards,
> Dave


 
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary does not give _swang_ as a past tense of _swing._ In other words, the dictionary editors' research indicates that educated speakers use _swung_ as the past tense, that is, _swung_ is standard. All entries in the dictionary are considered standard unless marked to show otherwise, as with "slang" or "nonstandard" or "dialect."

_Swang_ does appear as a past tense of _swing_ in the Merriam-Webster Third International Dictionary, Unabridged, where it is referred to as "_also chiefly dialect_ *swang*." The use of _also_ instead of _or_ is Merriam-Webster's way of indicating that the form is relatively rare, and I'd think it must be quite rare if it does not appear in the Collegiate (the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is a version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate).

It is, of course, not unusual for an educated person to speak in his regional dialect, especially in the US.


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## sound shift

I say "swung", for what it's worth.

I don't subscribe to the "German influence" theory. English does not derive from German, and I am not aware of any sort of vogue for conjugating verbs on the German model.


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## kalamazoo

Well, I apologize if I inadvertently insulted anyone. I literally never heard of "swang" and I don't remember ever seeing it in writing in any current book or article, so I thought it was just a substandard form, sort of like "ain't", that an educated person wouldn't be likely to use.  I stand corrected (though I think personally I will stick with "swung"!).


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## Elske_m

losilmer said:


> Infinitive -- *to swing *
> 
> Past tense -- *swung* (* & swang*, chiefly in Scotland and North of England)
> 
> Past participle -- *swung. *


 
Wow, that's interesting.
I'd never considered the *swung*/*swang *thing before. Where I am *swang *is indeed actually more commonly used!
However, I would use *swung* in some contexts for reasons I'm unsure of.

I swang the bat.
I swang from the tree.

I swung by the shops.

... go figure.



sound shift said:


> I say "swung", for what it's worth.
> 
> I don't subscribe to the "German influence" theory. English does not derive from German, and I am not aware of any sort of vogue for conjugating verbs on the German model.


 
Yet English and German are both Germanic languages and derive from a common source...  I think this is where the confusion is.


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## Cagey

Concerning: wring _wrang_ wrung.

It seems to me that the survival of "_wrang_" may be influenced by the fact that the standard forms of the homophone _ring_ (when it means "to sound") are "ring _rang_ rung".   

[I will also point out - just for fun - that when _ring _means "to encircle", the forms are "_ring, ringed, ringed_".]


----------



## natkretep

I just noticed that wiktionary gives _swang_ before _swung_ as the past tense form: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/swing ... not that it is any kind of authority, though, but interesting nonetheless.


----------



## kalamazoo

Wiktionary gives swang before swung, but all their examples actually use swung as the past tense.


----------



## GreenWhiteBlue

natkretep said:


> I just noticed that wiktionary gives _swang_ before _swung_ as the past tense form: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/swing ... not that it is any kind of authority, though, but interesting nonetheless.


 
Since anyone can add to Wiktionary, one should expect Wiktionary to contain numerous errors.  It should not be considered authoritative at all.


----------



## panjandrum

Another personal comment ...

I've not heard _swang _used by anyone over the age of 6.  A clever child will pick up the pattern and use swing, swang, swung - until "corrected".

It's intriguing to read that there is a flourishing community of swang-users out there.  I'll try to remember to consult with my not-long-past-six contacts in the next day or so


----------



## jimreilly

JulianStuart said:


> Am I missing a point here? The word came from German a long time ago (according to my OEDs ) with a structure like many other such verbs -i-, -a-, and -u-, and it hasn't changed (not yet everywhere, anyway), so what influence is being referred to?


 
Sorry not to be clear, JulianStuart, it's so long ago in this thread, and several responses dealing with this were deleted. I was referring to the possible influence of the large number of German _immigrants_ to the USA in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the use _in English_ of "swang"; such immigrants would be likely to use "swang" by analogy to their native German, thus making some small contribution to swang's continuing popularity in English. This (now very long) thread convinces me that "swang" survives primarily for other reasons; that does not rule out some small contribution by those German (and Norwegian) immigrants.


----------



## losilmer

Sarasaki said:


> According to me, the past tense of swing is "swung" but my daughter's teacher told her its "swang"
> Can anyone out there tell me which is correct? "Swang" is a bit archaic dont you think?



After so many an opinion and discussion, the crux of the original question has since long been answered.  It's what I gather.

The daughter's teacher was wrong, because the past tense of swing is "swang", but also "swung".

Sarasaki could infer from this thread that *both forms are correct.*
And that "swang" is archaic, for it is very old, as well as "swung."


----------



## kalamazoo

I think Sarasaki can also infer that "swung" is much more widely used than "swang."


----------



## Brioche

Loob said:


> No, I'd say that the standard BrE past tense of "swing" would be "swung"



One swallow does not make a spring, but The Times has used _swang_.


----------



## GreenWhiteBlue

Brioche said:


> One swallow does not make a spring, but The Times has used _swang_.


 
And that, children, is why Britain no longer has an Empire...


----------



## Elske_m

panjandrum said:


> Another personal comment ...
> 
> I've not heard _swang _used by anyone over the age of 6. A clever child will pick up the pattern and use swing, swang, swung - until "corrected".
> 
> It's intriguing to read that there is a flourishing community of swang-users out there. I'll try to remember to consult with my not-long-past-six contacts in the next day or so


 
There are dialect differences. I don't much care for insinuations that I have the mind of a 6-year-old.


----------



## kalamazoo

I find this discussion fascinating because I really never heard of this. It's not quite an AE/BE difference but it seems to verge on one.  I would never have guessed!


----------



## JamesM

kalamazoo said:


> I think Sarasaki can also infer that "swung" is much more widely used than "swang."


 
I can wholeheartedly agree with this, at least for AE.


----------



## Bad Critter

I hope I am not going to cause too much controversy by reviving this dormant thread. I would like to know which reads better:
...MS analysis demonstrated that the distribution of polymeric species in the non-aqueous phase fraction *swang/swung* to a lower molecular weight range...

In this same vein, the word "spring" has vexing past tense issues. For instance, spring has sprung while the mummy sprang to life. Apparently, other lesser venues (i.e., answers.yahoo.com - as I am prevented from displaying urls for another 29 posts) are also contemplating this quandary.


----------



## panjandrum

Hello Bad Critter, and welcome to WordReference 

Which reads better depends on what you are used to.  I am used to _swung_, so the swang version interrupts the communication.
The reverse is presumably true for _swang _users.

As for which you should use: the debate above, and elsewhere, indicates that there are plenty of _swang _users, but I think the wise answer is _swung_. unless you are sure you are writing for/speaking to a _swang_-using audience.


----------



## Forero

I am having difficulty imagining a distribution swinging at all. Why not _fell_ or _dropped_?


----------



## Bad Critter

Forero,



Forero said:


> I am having difficulty imagining a distribution swinging at all. Why not _fell_ or _dropped_?


 
I knew the choice of diction would come into question.  This sentence fragment pertains to a review of some scientific literature.  The ideal word would be the original one that was used (shifted) but unlike some in the scientific community I am loathe to do the "copy and paste" and then switch a few words routine when writing articles.  Re-using the word "shifted" would be simply unacceptable as I am already forced due to the scientific nature of this review to retain certain words (e.g., molecular weight, distribution, etc.).

I do think a 'dropping distribution' has a nice way about it.


----------



## Bradamant

kalamazoo said:


> I would never have guessed that "swang" was used in the UK today. In the US, I can't really imagine an educated AE speaker using it. Sorry for any misunderstandings.



I know this thread is old, but I have only recently started to see "swung" as simple past pop up in my reading and wanted to investigate. I am many generations-along American, raised in the Southwest by good Midwestern folk, attended University on the East Coast and then lived many years on the West Coast. I was very educationally privileged, as were my parents. 

When I hear or read "swung" as the simple past, I wince. Painfully hard. It has only ever been sign of "lack of education" in my experience, until recently. 

American English may be regularizing these forms away, but I'll still be using them 50 years from now. Any whippersnappers I birth will have these forms drilled into their little noggins, too.


----------



## Packard

I Googled: *conjugation, swing*

And I got this:

http://www.verb2verbe.com/conjugation/english-verb/swing.aspx

Notwithstanding all the aberrant examples previously given, if this conjugation table is correct, then *"out with the swang, and in with the swung".*

(I was a so-so baseball player. I fielded well, but I often missed when I swung the bat. I might have hit better if I swang at it though.)


----------



## mplsray

Bradamant said:


> When I hear or read "swung" as the simple past, I wince. Painfully hard. It has only ever been sign of "lack of education" in my experience, until recently.



_Swung_ has been a standard past tense for _swing_ in American English for a very long time. The Century Dictionary, an American dictionary of 1895 that came from an era when dictionaries were prescriptive, gave the past tense of _swing_ as "_swung_ or _swang_." That is gave _swung_ before _swang_, rather than in alphabetical order, suggests to me that _swang_ was the rarer form.

Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, did not show _swang_ as a verb at all, and the 1913 Webster's Unabridged showed it as being "Archaic" under the entry "swing" and "obs." under the entry "swang." Those two dictionaries can be consulted here.


----------



## JamesM

Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1971 has "swung _or archaic or dial. _swang".   This is more appropriate, in my opinion.

As a result of this thread I long ago accepted that "swang" is dialect but I object to "aberrant". 

This is not some arcane, rarely used word that can be discovered in its natural habitat only by hiking a few days into the backwoods somewhere to interview the aboriginals. There are hundreds of examples of its use on books.google.com. There are fairly recent magazine and newspaper articles that use this word. It appears in both British and American literature and poetry through the 19th century. It is quite common in some communities to be the first choice for the simple past tense of swing.

It is dialect only because it is a conservative retention of the regular conjugation from centuries past. I can easily accept that the language has moved on and that what is now standard is "swing-swung-swung". There may also be a time when the standard will be "drink-drunk-drunk" and "swim-swum-swum". We're not there yet.

Please allow some room for dialects where the older form of "swang" is still retained and be a little gracious. It is not aberrant, childish or uneducated.


----------



## LondonFast90

In italian schools and textbooks the use of "swang" in the sequence "swing-swang-swung" is very frequent! I studied it and nobody told me that it was a strange form.. now I know that for many natives it is and I'm going to change my habits..!
Only one question,maybe stupid as I'm not a linguist: isn't the sequence "swing-swang-swung" similar to other paradigms such as "run-ran-run"??
well, we can't clearly state why paradigms have changed and in what ways but some of them present similarities..


----------



## owlman5

There are others even closer, London Fast 90: the verb "to ring" as in "ring a bell" is still often conjugated as "ring, rang, rung", which sounds right to me.  It's hard to predict the changes in certain verbs, and those that conjugate in the same way don't all change at once.


----------



## Vicusya

OMG! How is it possible to learn English! It changes so often! When I was taking English back in Russia, it was awfully wrong to use "swung" instead of "swang". And now I'd looked in so many dictionaries and "swang" seems nowhere to be found! But when I read books I do see "swang" pretty often.


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## yunikay

Hi there! according to my research people usually use the word "swang" but for me I use " swung "

A typing program highlighted the word " swang " because it's wrong.
then when I right clicked it the correct word is " swung " 

 SWANG
 SWUNG

 I'm cute
- eunii <3


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## uniman39

I'm afraid I've had to join this thread because I've been rather alarmed by a couple of things written so far: first, the level of inaccuracy about a simple verb paradigm and second, this pretty appalling term 'regularization' used by an American contributor above. With the former, the answer to the question is pretty simple. All the dictionaries (1) currently used in Britain, designed either for research into, or as an aid for, second language acquisition, contain the perfectly correct and extant past tense of the verb "to swing" which is "swang". The paradigm is still therefore "swing, swang, swung" and, until I hear any different from the lexicographers and corpus linguists who decide these kinds of things, always will be.

That brings me to the second source of (some) alarm, this sinister neologism "regularization". I can only assume that what it means is that all American variations of what Americans call "British English" will eventually become the universal norm; that "regularization" somehow means Americanisation. I suppose that might be the case, what with American-controlled mass media and so on, and if you are one of those people who imagine that the march of American cultural imperialism is unstoppable, but I can tell you that this phenomenon has not progressed anywhere near as far as the person who mentioned it seems sincerely to believe. His contention that the correct English past tense of "swing" (swang) will die out because of "lack of use", or perhaps because people in America are comfortable with turning speech errors into new language rules, is somewhat misleading, rather blinkered  not all that well-informed.

Sorry to sound slightly irritable but I just get quite cross when people write things on the internet wearing a cloak of authority they might not have really deserved to don. 

Glad I swang by. 
Bye!

(1) E.g.: Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 2003; Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English for Adv Learners, 2003; MacMillan English Dictionary for Adv Learners _et al_
Incidentally, one of the authors of the last example on that list was my postgraduate supervisor.


----------



## entangledbank

Oh christ. Another one. You want corpus linguistics? Here's the _British National Corpus_. I know you don't know what that is, so you're going to have to take it on trust that this decides the matter.

_swang_: 0
_swung_: 1650, and by inspection the great majority of those are preterites

Lexicographers? That'd be the _OED_ then:

Pa. tense *swung*/swʌŋ/ , _rarely _*swang*/swæŋ/

Corpus linguistics: check. Lexicographers: check. Cloak of authority someone might not have really deserved to don: check.


----------



## JulianStuart

Uniman39
Welcome to the forum!
Perhaps you should check out the link I had provided earlier in the thread to an article in the prestigious journal Nature, published in the UK before assuming what regularization means. I suspect you were referring to my post and can just inform you that I am a British citizen who grew up in England and migrated to the US as an adult. (I use the OED's preferred -ize).

The article in question is a report which is based on extensive research (if I recall,  by a group that is neither American nor British - It was a French author in a multiauthor papr from Harvard) about changes that have taken place in the language over time and is actually exceptionally well-informed.  It is a statistical analysis of usage which makes a very strong correlation between the frequency of occurrence of a particular word and the rate at which it loses "irregular" forms.
There is absolutely nothing in the article, or even the phenomenon, that has anything to do with what Americans think of English English or of what English people think of American English - I'm afraid you brought that whole concept to the table with your post.  Somewhere in these fora, is a more extensive thread on the issue - I will add a link when I am back at my computer....

Here is the link to that thread on the previous discussion.


----------



## Loob

Hello uniman39.

You are, of course, perfectly entitled to use "swang" as the past tense of "swing" if you wish to do so.  But I'd like to add one comment to the points already made by others.

You suggested that 





> All the dictionaries (1) currently used in Britain, designed either for research into, or as an aid for, second language acquisition, contain the perfectly correct and extant past tense of the verb "to swing" which is "swang".


This is simply not true.

_The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary_ has "swung, swung" for the past tense and past participle; as do, amongst others, the_ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary_, the _Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English_, and the _Macmillan Dictionary_.


----------



## kalamazoo

Apparently new language rules generated by British speakers of English are okay but those generated by American speakers are just examples of cultural imperialism!  Glad we got that straightened out.  Returning to the topic at hand, "swang" would sound quite odd to me but "swung" used as the past tense wouldn't raise any eyebrows.


----------



## GreenWhiteBlue

uniman39 said:


> I'm afraid I've had to join this thread because I've been rather alarmed by a couple of things written so far:... fir second, this pretty appalling term 'regularization' used by an American contributor above.


There is nothing appalling about the term at all -- especially when one knows what it means. You may wish to learn what it means, and then perhaps you will no longer be "appalled."



> The paradigm is still therefore "swing, swang, swung" and, until I hear any different from the lexicographers and corpus linguists who decide these kinds of things, always will be.


The majority of your countrymen disagree, and (as the OED recommends) use "swung" as the past tense of "swing". 



> I can only assume that what it means is that all American variations of what Americans call "British English" will eventually become the universal norm; that "regularization" somehow means Americanisation.


You may wish to note that in many cases, American variations are the older forms, and those found in Briain today are relative novelities. One example is your own spelling "Americanisation" instead of "Americanization"; as Loob noted, the OED itself prefers the original British "-ize" form instead of the far newer, French-influenced "-ise" for such verbs. The Elizabethan Thomas Nashe, who claimed to have introduced "-ize" into English, would certainly have little trouble with "Americanize", but would find your own spelling an unwarranted novelty.



> I suppose that might be the case, what with American-controlled mass media and so on,


Demographics seem a likelier explanation; there are more than 300 million native English speakers in the United States, and millions more in Canada; meanwhile, the population of the United Kingdom is about 1/5 of that number.



> if you are one of those people who imagine that the march of American cultural imperialism is unstoppable, but I can tell you that this phenomenon has not progressed anywhere near as far as the person who mentioned it seems sincerely to believe.


Was Shakespeare a victim of this "American cultural imperialism" when, in Romeo and Juliet (I,1), he had Benvolio say


> The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,
> Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,
> He *swung* about his head and cut the winds,


?

Was it American cultural imperialsim that led Dr. Johnson, in his Grammar of the English Tongue, to declare 





> _Win, spin, begin, swim, strike, stick, sing, sting, fling, ring, wring, spring, *swing*, ..._ both in the preterite imperfect and participle passive, give _won, spun, begun, swum, struck, stuck, sung, stung, flung, rung, wrung, sprung, *swung *....,_ And most of them are also formed in the preterite by _a_, as _began, rang, sang, sprang, drank, came, ran_, *and some others; but most of these are now obsolete*.


?



> His contention that the correct English past tense of "swing" (swang) will die out because of "lack of use", or perhaps because people in America are comfortable with turning speech errors into new language rules, is somewhat misleading, rather blinkered not all that well-informed.


Does that mean that all the people in Britain today (and all of those in centuries past, such as the authors noted) who consider the past tense of 'swing' to be 'swung', and not 'swang', are _incorrect?_



> I just get quite cross when people write things on the internet wearing a cloak of authority they might not have really deserved to don.


 
You know, many of us can understand that feeling...


----------



## Packard

Rarely have so many feathers been ruffled by the first post of a new member. Welcome.

I'm not taking sides here. But language is a changeable medium--something akin to a blob of mercury; if you nudge it one direction the rest of the blob moves around and you can never pin it down.

Dictionaries reflect usage; they really don't dictate usage. Some dictionaries are slower to change than others; other dictionaries jump on new entries like a cat on a house mouse.

I view dictionaries as a resource, not as an edict from High.

So welcome. You've enlivened this thread already.


----------



## JulianStuart

Here is a link to the _whole text _of the article on the research on the "regularization" phenomenon that has occurred as English has changed "over the last 1200 years" (previously the link only led to the abstract).  Just in case you are interested in this new word


----------



## Alxmrphi

> Dictionaries reflect usage; they really don't dictate usage. Some  dictionaries are slower to change than others; other dictionaries jump  on new entries like a cat on a house mouse
> I view dictionaries as a resource, not as an edict from High.


That's the wisest thing posted in this thread.
Dictionaries are a way to document our constantly changing language, updating all the time with our new words and making updates about how the meanings are being applied differently.

The person that runs to the dictionary and can't find an intended meaning in the entry of the word used by his interlocutor, and runs back and deems them as speaking incorrectly, is an absolute moron in my opinion, who completely fails to understand the point of dictionaries. That dictionary is behind the times and naturally will always be, as dictionaries are not self-updating and replicating. The dictionary isn't there to tell you what meanings you can use and everything not present is bad/wrong, it's only to show you meanings that have been used and accepted in the past, while keeping a most-up-to-date-as-possible account of the most recent usage patterns.

And for the record: I hear both where I live, I think I use both as well, preterite forms I mean..


----------



## uniman39

Lively responses. I can't see that any one of them has had much impact on the factual content of what I said. For instance, the article on 'regularisation' is really about the development of the language over history, not the imposition of one national dialect on the other as a consequence more of socio-political and socio-economic factors than truly linguistic ones. As for the dictionary references, saying it is 'simply not true' is balmy. I own the dictionaries and last time I checked I could read! I suspect the poster was looking at American (or newer?) editions.

The reference to the British Corpus was also not as profound as it might have sounded to some since the methodology behind its creation is not perfect (a lot of what can frankly be termed "Americanisms" have crept in and made the title "British" rather meaningless).

Thanks for the welcome, btw. Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers - just speaking my mind (which is informed - or, perhaps, misinformed! - by nearly 20 years experience). Have a good day.


----------



## bristow

I was brought up in New Zealand and used 'swang', but a lot of the first immigrants to NZ were from Scotland and northern England,where apparently this is used.

I heard an American Judge/Magistrate on TV (_Animal Cops Phoenix_) use 'drug' as the past tense of _drag_ the other day.

Other past tenses that seem to be changing are snuck (for sneak), dove (for dive) and shat (for shit).  These may be tongue in cheek initially or sound ugly, but this is how language changes.  There is no point in getting angry or self righteous about such changes.


----------



## JamesM

uniman39 said:


> Lively responses. I can't see that any one of them has had much impact on the factual content of what I said. For instance, the article on 'regularisation' is really about the development of the language over history, not the imposition of one national dialect on the other as a consequence more of socio-political and socio-economic factors than truly linguistic ones.



You have not made a case for the imposition, as you call it, being the source of "swing / swung / swung" other than your own assumptions.  There has been a change; that is clear.  The source of the change has not been established, and the change occurred long before any rise of the influence of America on global English if Samuel Johnson noted it in 1755.



> As for the dictionary references, saying it is 'simply not true' is balmy. I own the dictionaries and last time I checked I could read! I suspect the poster was looking at American (or newer?) editions.



Then you might be a little more careful in your broad statements.   Your original statement was "*All* the dictionaries *(1) currently* used in Britain, designed either for research into, or as an aid for, second language acquisition, contain the perfectly correct and extant past tense of the verb 'to swing' which is 'swang'."  It appears what you meant was "All the dictionaries I happen to own..."   Loob provided direct links to the entries she referred to.  We haven't heard from you which dictionaries you own and which editions. 



> The reference to the British Corpus was also not as profound as it might have sounded to some since the methodology behind its creation is not perfect (a lot of what can frankly be termed "Americanisms" have crept in and made the title "British" rather meaningless).



You are ignoring the references to "pure" British works above that use swung and existed before the U.S. was even a country.  

While British English may be influenced by American English, this is clearly not an example of that influence.  (This, from a fellow "swang" user.  See my posts earlier in the thread.   )


----------



## JulianStuart

uniman39 said:


> Lively responses. I can't see that any one of them has had much impact on the factual content of what I said.


I have to say that I see few "facts" in that post, mostly irritation and (not so well informed) opinions 


> For instance, the article on 'regularisation' is really about the development of the language over history, not the imposition of one national dialect on the other as a consequence more of socio-political and socio-economic factors than truly linguistic ones.


The article was cited in response to the original question about swang and how words like that become history under a proven pressure of linguistic change.
The whole issue of "imposition  of one national dialect on the other as a consequence more of socio-political and socio-economic factors " was, not surprisingly,  completely absent from the thread but seems to represent a core concept that causes your irritation.


> I can tell you that this phenomenon has not progressed anywhere near as  far as the person who mentioned it seems sincerely to believe.


You might like to take that up with the editors of Nature* and the authors of the paper - or, if your desire to be informed is real, to actually see what they say in the paper....  _Our_ personal beliefs in how far it has progressed, _based on the data presented_, are irrelevant. I will look forward to your well-researched, peer-reviewed rebuttal in the pages of Nature in due course 

*I presume you are aware of the reputation of one of Britain's leading science journals, the one, for example, that published Watson-Crick in 1953?


----------



## alexjrgreen

It may be relevant that "swang" also means "marsh", so the original "swing, swang, swung" usage may have been dropped as confusing.


----------



## MotherBuck

natkretep said:


> I'd never used _swang _before so was surprised to see it mentioned. But you are right. There is no _swang_, according to the Cobuild Dictionary. It is not standard AE either: no _swang _in the Websters.




But Webster's does list swang. Check Merriam-Webster online.


----------



## Embonpoint

I have heard swang. I may have even said it. Blush. I would doubt it if I wrote it, but yes, people do say this.


----------



## natkretep

MotherBuck said:


> But Webster's does list swang. Check Merriam-Webster online.


Are you looking at your print version? The online version that I can see does not mention _swang_:


> *swing *verb \ˈswiŋ\
> : to move backward and forward or from side to side while hanging from something
> : to move with a smooth, curving motion
> : to move (your arm, a tool, etc.) with a quick, curving motion especially to try to hit something
> 
> swung  swing·ing


----------



## mplsray

_Swang_ is given in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged:





> *Swing*_* . . . *vb _*swung* . . . _also chiefly dial _*swang*



According to the Oxford English Dictionary, _swang_ was the past tense in Old English, so it's not surprising that it would still have hung on in some dialects. The OED also says the following:



> *Forms:*  Pa. tense *swung*/swʌŋ/ , _rarely_*swang*/swæŋ/ ; pa. pple. *swung*


----------



## DHoole

Elske_m said:


> Wow, that's interesting.
> I'd never considered the *swung*/*swang *thing before. Where I am *swang *is indeed actually more commonly used!
> However, I would use *swung* in some contexts for reasons I'm unsure of.
> 
> I swang the bat.
> I swang from the tree.
> 
> I swung by the shops.
> 
> ... go figure.
> 
> 
> 
> Yet English and German are both Germanic languages and derive from a common source...  I think this is where the confusion is.



I suggest that the difference in the three examples above is that 'I swung by the shops' is an American English idiom (as is 'Go figure' !), so there is a tendency for British speakers to copy it even if they otherwise sometimes say 'swang'. I don't agree with another suggestion above that 'swang' is northern British. I generally use it and i was born and raised in London.


----------



## twalsh1490

How uncommon is "swang"?  In December 2019, Microsoft Word, set to English (American) underlined SWANG in red as either an error or an unknown word in the following sentence: 
"The swinging door swang behind her." 

The word is not unknown to me.  I added it to my custom dictionary.


----------



## JulianStuart

For those interested in diatribes on the subject of "irregular" verbs, this book may be worth a visit, section 105 onwards.  It will be sure to "set you right" (It gives "swung or swang") 
If that link doesn't work, this is the Google hit information.
*A Grammar of the English Language: In a Series of Letters. ...* https://books.google.com › books
William Cobbett - 1824


----------



## Packard

Merriam-Webster lists it as "chiefly dialectal".

Definition of SWANG

*Definition of swang*
(Entry 1 of 2)

chiefly dialectal past tense of swing


----------



## JulianStuart

Webster's 1913 Dictionary has swang already as "archaic" 


*v. i.**1.*To move to and fro, as a body suspended in the air; to wave; to vibrate; to oscillate.
[imp. & p. p. Swung ; Archaic imp. Swang ; p. pr. & vb. n. Swinging.]


----------



## Uncle Jack

Personally, I would not use "swang", although I recognise it. OED merely says "rarely", and includes many examples from Middle English, but relatively few from Modern English (seventeenth century onwards).

Curiously, all bar one of the Modern English quotes are intransitive. It appears that no one after the sixteenth century ever swang a hammer, they always swung it, but arms swang (R Steele, 1710, and Hilaire Belloc, 1912) and inn signs swang (Alfred Lord Tennyson, _Aylmer's Field,_1864). In 1828, William Wordsworth wrote that that Silenus swang in_ Stanzas on The Power of Sound_, but I don't know what he meant by this, and an S Warner wrote that a sloop (a type of boat) "swang up to her appointed place" in 1856.

There is just one transitive use that I have found, and that is reflexive: "Rosalie swang herself violently back" (E Gosse, 1892).

@twalsh1490 appears to be continuing this intransitive tradition.


twalsh1490 said:


> How uncommon is "swang"?  In December 2019, Microsoft Word, set to English (American) underlined SWANG in red as either an error or an unknown word in the following sentence:
> "The swinging door swang behind her."
> 
> The word is not unknown to me.  I added it to my custom dictionary.


Since you still use the word, would you ever say that you swang a hammer, or even a door?


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## Packard

Uncle Jack said:


> Personally, I would not use "swang", although I recognise it. OED merely says "rarely", and includes many examples from Middle English, but relatively few from Modern English (seventeenth century onwards).
> 
> Curiously, all bar one of the Modern English quotes are intransitive. It appears that no one after the sixteenth century ever swang a hammer, they always swung it, but arms swang (R Steele, 1710, and Hilaire Belloc, 1912) and inn signs swang (Alfred Lord Tennyson, _Aylmer's Field,_1864). In 1828, William Wordsworth wrote that that Silenus swang in_ Stanzas on The Power of Sound_, but I don't know what he meant by this, and an S Warner wrote that a sloop (a type of boat) "swang up to her appointed place" in 1856.
> 
> There is just one transitive use that I have found, and that is reflexive: "Rosalie swang herself violently back" (E Gosse, 1892).
> 
> @twalsh1490 appears to be continuing this intransitive tradition.
> 
> Since you still use the word, would you ever say that you swang a hammer, or even a door?


You would not "swang a door" but rather "the door swang closed".  Or "the hammer swang in time with the music." not "he swang a hammer".  If you are going to use a non-word you should use it properly.  ".


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## JulianStuart

Packard said:


> You would not "swang a door" but rather "the door swang closed".  Or "the hammer swang in time with the music." not "he swang a hammer".  If you are going to use a non-word you should use it properly.  ".


I guess that cricket and baseball put a stop to the restriction to intransitive usage


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