Something in my brain doesn't like the long E of leaped. Is there a spelling that makes it clear that I'm rhyming with swept?
Well, use leapt then. I don't know if you're British or not - we use "t" instead of "ed" a lot more than Americans. I don't know what the rules are over there, because here I'm free to use that spelling so don't care.
Okay, I got confused because the default spell-checker doesn't like it, and I thought it wasn't a real word. Considering that part of the audience is European...
All I know is an American spelling-nazi friend keeps correcting me, and I always respond with, "But it was spelt right!"
Okay, okay...I can use it for it things like "It surely spelt disaster!" but not "That is spelt wrong." To be honest though, they both look really wrong to me
Funny, I'd say "spelled disaster" but it's definitely "spelt wrong" when it comes out my mouth. I think there's a difference between using it in the middle of a sentence, and making it the focus of the sentence. "spelled disaster" is a common phrase, while just throwing it into the middle of a sentence it can be shorter, because no one is looking for it.
English dictionary definitions... Shudder : to shake or tremble uncontrollably from a reaction such as cold, fear, or disgust Shutter : to close or protect something by means of shutters
I came into this forum with the intent of asking the same question, I'm glad someone beat me to it! I always want to use leapt but my word processor gets upset.
It's not! British people make plenty of crazy errors too, but the American accent has a blurring between t and d, and in spelling, it shows. I just find it cute. I AM half-American and often quite proud of it despite living in Englandland most of my life - I'm just makin' a social observation about the quirks of language. Like it's equally unoffensive to say I like how some countries they type laughter like, "ja ja ja" because of the different letter sounds. I just can't think of any peculiarly British misspellings because I'm so surrounded by them I wouldn't know where to start and which ones don't show up in American writing.
Merriam-Webster says they're both acceptable. For myself, I always use whatever is the acceptable version and, for words where both forms are acceptable, I try to stick to the same logic. What I mean is this: the past form of "spell" is "spelled," the past tense of "dream" is "dreamed," therefore I use the past tense of "leap" as "leaped." I have no choice for words such as "creep" and "sweep" since the past tenses both have a "-t" suffix, no "-ed" suffix. They're irregular verbs. This is, of course, American, so the British might have a different way. Whatever you use, though, be consistent. You don't want to use "leapt" and then, four pages later, use "leaped." That's a deal-breaker.
