_Shew_ is used by Hector Boece, Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthornden,
and in the Paston Letters. Similar strong preterites, like _snew_,
_thew_, and even _mew_, are not without example. I find _sew_ for
_sewed_ in 'Piers Ploughman.' Indeed, the anomalies in English
preterites are perplexing. We have probably transferred _flew_ from
_flow_ (as the preterite of which I have heard it) to _fly_ because we
had another preterite in _fled_. Of weak preterites the Yankee retains
_growed_, _blowed_, for which he has good authority, and less often
_knowed_. His _sot_ is merely a broad sounding of _sat_, no more
inelegant than the common _got_ for _gat_, which he further degrades
into _gut_. When he says _darst_, he uses a form as old as Chaucer.
The Yankee has retained something of the long sound of the _a_ in such
words as _axe_, _wax_, pronouncing them _exe_, _wex_ (shortened from
_aix_, _waix_). He also says _hev_ and _hed_ (_h[=a]ve_, _h[=a]d_ for
_have_ and _had_). In most cases he follows an Anglo-Saxon usage. In
_aix_ for _axle_ he certainly does.
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